Finally managed to polybush the rear trailing arm on the passenger side and although I knew exactly what to do and had all my tools laid out, it still took me about 8-9 hours, which I split between Friday night frosty and cold to remove and split and Saturday morning to reassemble, clean and paint before fitting in the rain. Not as many photos as I was getting hacked off getting wet.
This time I wiggled the arm with the old bush and it was shocking how much play there was. The corrosion was just as bad so I used a drill and metal brush to clean it up before applying jenolite rust converter to the inside of the housing, then hammerite on the metal and the same again on the chassis.
It definitely feels so much sharper on turn in and I did notice the difference when turning the steering wheel left to right when driving with just one side done. The negative is that there is a little more harshness and road noise but a very acceptable trade-off to me. Ideally it would be good try one with OE trailing arms and bushes to get a balanced opinion. One thing I did notice was how bad the bushes were, they were totally shot and when underneath the car I realised the others are shot too and I intend to poly these too once it warms up.
I also used my steam cleaner on the intake with the engine running once it had been warmed up to clear out some of the carbon build-up. After, I put it back together and give it a bit of a thrash to clear it out.
I'm not recommending this but after seeing how clean the piston and valves get from a leaking head gasket I thought I'd do this. I've done this on my other vehicles with good results and will try it again in another week or so before changing the oil and filter again.
