Nissan Micra K12

The  lower arm or wishbone has three attachment points: outboard there is the front lower ball joint, whilst inboard there is a front pivot bolt and a rear suspension joint -both secured through rubber bushes, the front is cylindrical in form and the rear a doughnut. All three are obtainable separating from a variety of manufacturers. I bought the ball-joints from Sureline and all the other bushes from Febi. This means refurbishing the arm is a cost-competitive solution and could be considered alongside complete arm replacement- certainly if only one bush has failed (usually the ball joint). However, there isn't much guidance out there for anyone wishing to go down that route so I decided to recondition my old arms. This is a summary of my experience. The process wasn't too difficult as long as you have the right tools (see below) Ball Joint I ordered new ball joints from Sureline, each joint comes with a splined press-in section and a wire clip to secure it once fitted.

The sub frame is attached at the front of the car by a side arm fitted each side and mounted top and bottom through captive metalastic bushes. These bushes seem fairly complex in structure and the rubber is deformable as the bushes are installed. The old bushes were in poor condition even though they hadn't actually failed and no movement was detectable at MOT. I changed the arm anyway, but thought I'd investigate what was involved in reconditioning it anyway. To press the bushes I'm making use of a 10 tonne bench press, a Draper Press and Pull kit and the odd cup from my ball joint fitting press. Even so I still needed to raid my socket set for other sizes! Top bush Bottom bush New bushes, top bush (upper), bottom bush (lower) The new top bush looks different to the old and it wasnt at first obvious how this should be mounted. Fortunately I already have one reconditioned arm ordered separately. Looking at this the orientation of the new top bush is clear.