Hi folks


I have a 73 Kubelwagen - it has a wobble at around 80klm/h that I'm try to fix so am slowly going thru the front end fixing things.

Today's job was stabilizer bar bushings, like everything with these old cars a quick job becomes a whole weekend. When I try to attach the new rubber bushings to the torsion bar by way of the metal clip that goes around the torsion bar and the rubber bushing, it's a super tight fit, so the surrounding bracket needs to be somehow compressed to allow the small metal locking clip to slide on. My question is in order to compress the bracket around the rubber bushing it seems to me I need to use so much force I'm going to distort the shape of the bracket... I'm using vice grips to gradually compress the bracket but damned if it's not bending the metal. Is there a trick to this? Or a special tool required? The original bracket seems to be a slightly thinner metal and much more perfectly shaped. New bushing and old bushing are same size ( old one shows excessive wear) . Any advice is greatly appreciated!

What about some 12mm bits of hardwood and a large G-clamp? The hardwood will spread the load of the g-clamp heads.

These videos make it look like a five minute job - In the Chris Malone video he coats the rubber in WD40 - so I tried this and it really changes the way the rubber behaves under pressure. Instead of sticking and pinching they kind of slip under the bracket and behave nicely. Anyway it seemed to work.

http://youtu.be/vbVOH1erAoI 

http://youtu.be/wWf-3s-jz94