Well for all of the how to's I have read on here, I have not seen anyone mentioning clocking of the bushings on the rear LCA before torquing to spec.

I know that back in the day on my Honda I didn't clock the bushing and it caused premature wear on the bushing.

Basically the idea is to load the bushing before you torque it down on ANY loaded bushing. You do this by leaving the bolt loose and jacking up the rear LCA until the car comes just comes off the jack stand before tightening. Or if you happen to have enough room, you could lower the car down onto the floor with the bolt loose so the vehicle weight loads the bushing before you tighten the bolt and do a final torque.

What happens when you don't clock it? Basically if you tighten the bolt with the wheels in the air with no load on it, as you set the car back down the bushing will twist as you set it down. So over time your bushing will wear out because it's perpetually twisted at rest and going over bumps etc, which puts stress on it at rest rather than the normal movement from going over bumps.

So if you've ever installed suspension on your car without preloading the bushing aka clocking it before tightening it, I would recommend checking that bushing for premature wear and redoing the pre=load/clocking process on it. This only applies to the rear, since the front mounts directly to the knuckle.

 

Good observation. The alignment rack at our shop comes in real handy for this!

 

Also swaybars endlinks should be installed with weight on the vehicle. The endlink should slide easily into the sway bar. You don't want to have a preloaded bar.

 

Rear lower control arm bushing is spherical. No need to clock it. Front control arm inner if replaced with urethane though...

 

Hmmm which one here is spherical?

 

I guess people with experience just figure everyone knows that when there is no reason they would.

 

I have always done bushings like this. Good observation for guys on here that didnt know that.

 

Both the inner and outer are spherical with a small bit of rubber (~1mm) on the outside.

The trailing arm of course is full rubber, but if change the bushing and tighten it down then rotate it up the urethane will slip if you've lubed the crap out of it as you should. Generally, Metal -> Urathane has a pretty low coefficient of friction. Add in some bearing grease and clocking it wont be an issue.

 

Cool that makes things much easier hahaha.

 

It's in the manual. It's probably not mentioned as if it is needed, it's mentioned in there. If you aren't familiar with what you are doing, I'd suggest you always have a manual available.

Joints that are not spherical bearings and should be tightened in this manner:
Rear trailing arm
front lower control arm (front bushing)
rear lower control arm (both outer joints...shock and upright)
rear toe control arm

 

So the rear shock bushing is not spherical then?

 

Nope

 

Which manual?

 

The factory service manual.

 

I've got some PDFs, but I might be missing the right one that has LCA R&R.