changing vt z bar bushes ?

[NOT 38]

hey guys i recently went for a wheel aligment only to find out my z bar bushes are flogged out. i got qouted $550 to do them and upper and lower control arm bushes and a wheel aligment. how much effort is involved to do it at home? is it worth paying for the labour ?
cheers

[goose202]

Upper and lower control arm bushes? There's no upper control arm...
There is, however a strut top bush. Perhaps that is what was meant.

There's three bushes, inner and outer control arm and front radius rod. Probably $200 in bushes.
Getting the old control arm bushes out can be a pain (assuming they are factory) because they are contained in a pressed in steel sleeve. If you use two piece bushes they are easy to get in. Front radius rod bush is also easy.

Strut top bushes are $100pr from Holden. Once the strut is out that's just a nut to undo on the shock, but you'll probably need a spring compressor.

[vxcustom]

To do the z bar bushes is very very easy I did mine in about hour and half from start to finish and that included replacing the z bars themselves with hd nolathene z bars, nolathene z bar bushes (with adjustable caster). The hardest part was getting the bushes out of the control arm however I found that by using a very small drill bit and a hand drill i was able to drill through the rubber without touching the metal. After putting in about 5 or six holes (all the way through) I used a socket and a gentle adjuster (hammer for those that don't understand) and just knocked 'em out.

Made a difference to the handling as i added half a degree of extra caster into the front.