As the title says, I just replaced my idler arm bushings and now my steering linkage is incredibly stiff and hard to move. I lubed them correctly (this I know for a fact) and pushed them in completely without overtightening the nut. I did notice that they were hard to get on in general and took quite a bit of working to finally seat them correctly.
Should I be concerned about this as much as I am or we it wear down quickly? Could I take the bushings back off and file out the inside a little to make them fit better?

Any insight is welcome. TIA

 

Sounds like the steering box needs to be topped off with gear lube. When I replaced mine, I bought the whole idler arm unit. It nearly got rid of the wandering that I had when on highways and decreased the amount of steering play.

 

It really shouldn't be that tight. Has your car ever been in a front end collision? If the mount point geometry if off I could see some binding happening. Also, are your universal ball joints all in good shape? Check the ball joint at the end of the idler arm and the pitman arm, maybe one of those is seazed up and the bad bushing was taking up the slack. Just my 2 cent thoughts on the subject. Good luck!

 

Ive done both idler arms on my cars and the bushings fit great! Sounds like you got bad/wrong bushings dude! Where did you get them? I get mine from VB. Theyre beck-arnely IIRC. They should NOT fit that tight. Somethings wrong man.

 

Thanks everyone, I got mine from Mazdatrix. I'll start trying to find some more somewhere and try those.

BTW, everything up front looks good and seems to be in decent shape.

 

while the car is sitting, have someone turn the wheel while you watch the bushing. You may notice some binding - I replaced mine not long ago (OEM from Mazda) and they didn't go in that hard. also, what shape was the idler arm in before you replaced the bushing? If it was bad, it may be chewing up the new bushing. Then again, there may have been so much slop in the old bushing that you are simply not used to how hard these cars turn - I can't see it being the steering box if you never had the problem prior to the bushing replacement - it may simply be that things have tightened up the way they sholud be. Anyway , a few things to consider - good luck