SpitfireS

Are you doing the drilling with the arm still on the car?
?


If you are...
I would cut the bolt on both sides, remove arm and drill in a drill-press - IF you want to save the bushing.
You'll never be able to drill - even in a drill-press - exactly in the middle of the old bolt.
So you drill with a smaller size drill to avoid drilling in the the steel part of the bushing - and the chassis.
After this you need to remove what's left of the old bolt to make the new bolt fit.
Hard to do with the arm on the car.

About welding: they do not mention the type of welder specifically in the service manual, and I think it is mainly with TIG welders, some use a high voltage start puls to "ignite" the spark, but you're supposed to disconnect the ECU and airbag etc. before welding.

c.tran

Yea unfortunately I'm still doing it with the bolt on the car. I cut the threaded end flush but the arm is pushed up against the side of the chassis where the head is so I have no room at all to cut the head off. I tried pulling the arm back to, but no luck. Yea I'm still drilling through the bolt and got a little off center at the beginning so I actually did cut slightly into the steel sleeve, but I think it should still be salvageable. Thanks for the pictures though! I was having trouble trying to make out where the sleeve was around the bolt exactly.

SpitfireS

Even if you do get the drill all the way through the old bolt, and close to the steel sleeve of the bushing as possible, it will be pretty close to imposible to get whats left of that bolt out with the arm on the car.
And you need to be pretty close to the sleeve to make the old bolt collapse and break free from the rust, IF it does this at all.

Why not abandon the idea of saving the bushing, you can get new (Mugen) bushings from, for example King Motorsports
The rear lower bushings are common ones and not super expensive.
You do not need to buy the arm form Honda.

Cut through the bolt & sleeve on both sides, remove arm, press out bushing, install new one, new bolt WITH LOTS AND LOTS OF ANTI SEIZE , and you're done.

c.tran

Alright so final update:

I ended up having to cut out the rear bolt because I just couldn't bore it out with the drill all the way. Everyone says it's nearly impossible to do; now I see why haha. So I replaced it with a new control arm and everything is good to go now! I would have bought new bushings, but I'm moving tomorrow and needed an immediate fix. The new arm was from a junk yard for about $85.

I would have taken pictures of the process in case anyone was wondering how to replace the control arm and preload the suspension but it started to rain so I had to hurry


But thanks everyone for the advice and input! I don't know what I'd do without s2ki