2003 Allroad 2.7 6-spd m/t

Has anyone here done this? We're in the middle of converting the car from air springs to steel springs using BLAU parts steel spring kit. On the rear, driver's side, the eccentric camber adjust bolt inside the lower knuckle bushings (the bushings that attach to the outer lower control "A" arm) was completely frozen inside the knuckle bushings. Getting the old bushings out of the lower knuckle was an absolute nightmare. We banged and banged on it, but it felt like rubber resisting which we think was the problem. It would spin with big socket handle, but couldn't get the bolt to slide out. Eventually had to sawsall off the ends of the the frozen eccentric camber adjust bolt inside the end of the lower outer control A-arm, then drill out the bolt and surrounding bushing in incrementally bigger drill bits until we could get a 1/2” punch in there, then got the rest of the drilled out eccentric bolt out and inner part of the bushings until we could fit sawsall in there parallel to where eccentric bolt was and then carefully sawsall a wedge out of the outer half of the bushings. We did a little damage with the sawsall to the inner cylindrical wall of the knuckle where the bushings will go back in.

By "go back in", I presume the knuckle bushings should be (or maybe have to be) pressed back into the lower knuckle? I rented a ball-joint press from the local Advance Auto Parts store which I hope will work when I try this tonight. I think the truly proper way to do this may be to completely remove the knuckle from the vehicle and use a hydraulic press to press the knuckle bushings back in. But has anyone used a ball-joint press for this? I don't need it perfect, but want it drive-able for at least the short term as car has 225k miles. Is this a terrible idea? It's what one mechanic recommended trying.

So close to having the steel spring conversion completed as we got the other three corners done smoothly.

Thanks in advance!

 

Success. We were able to successfully press the knuckle bushings back into the lower knuckle with the ball joint press. We used the flattest cup on the bushing side in the ball joint press kit and the side of the c-clamp opposite the threads. We did one of the bushings at a time as they seemed to get off-center when we tried to do both at once. Worked fine.