Some follow-up on my idler arm bushing installation which I completed this afternoon. Scandcar did not provide any installation instructions for the bushing retrofit, I guess you are just supposed to 'know'. I ended up using the excellent instructions provided on Skandix's web site.
First off, removal of the old bushing showed that the rubber was toast. It was starting to crumble after only 6 years.
After removal, the fist thing you have to check before starting the installation is check the the stacked height of the bushing - the combined thickness of lip on the brass bushing, the thickness of the idler arm that fits over the bush and the thickness of the stainless steel spacer. This has to be less than the height of the steel sleeve that fits over the spindle on the idler arm mount. My measurements were:
brass lip - 5.1 mm
idler arm - 29.5 mm
SS spacer - 23.1 mm
Total = 57.7 mm
My sleeve was only 57 mm. The sleeve has to be longer, by just a bit, otherwise the bolt will tighten down on the bush impeding rotation of the idler arm. So, I had a length problem; but, there were no directions provided on how much shorter the stacked height had to be or how you should rectify this problem. I ended up filing down the idler arm to thin it down. A tedious 60 minutes with files got the idler arm down to 28.4 mm for a stacked height of 56.6 mm giving me about 0.4 mm clearance to the end of the sleeve.
The Skandix instructions call out for the use of Loctite 648 for mounting the sleeve, installing the brass bush on the idler arm and fixing the SS spacer over the brass bush. As if! 648 is for thin gaps. The skandix instructions show the sleeve being pressed on to the idler arm mount and the SS spacer being pressed on to the brass bushing. On my car these were a loose fit not requiring a press of any kind and 648 would not be appropriate for retaining. Loctite 620 is for larger clearances and works much better for retaining the sleeve and the SS spacer. On my car the brass bush was a very tight fit into the idler arm. In fact, I broke the mungo C clamp ball joint installer I was using to do the install ending up with the brass bush 75% of the way in. I had to make a quick trip to the machine shop I used for the fab work on my EPS install. His mega tonne press made quick work of the install. On my car the brass bush is such a tight fit in the idler arm that there was absolutely no need for retainer compound. In fact, the fit was so tight that all the retainer compound would be scraped off during the install.
Other than the above - straightforward.