I have tried the following:
1. exacto knives - 2 broken so far

2. drill bits and router bits in a drill - nothing stays still, and bounces all over the place

3. dremel tool with sander - the sander promptly broke

4. various wire brushes on a drill - I produce vast amounts of rubber dust but see absolutely no progress!

Any ideas on what sort of place I may take such a thing? No specific places mind, I'm in Canada. So far I feel like I'm in Afghanistan or Iraq fighting a lost cause. Thank you everyone for your help.

ps. great, now I'm on some CIA list somewhere...

[Edited on 14/7/07 by RK]

Hey, thanks, Calvin! That's twice you've helped me out with questions. My wife actually suggested that, if you can believe it. It's not a job for the front yard; I'll have to take it all out back. Should be good revenge against the guy behind us who just put a pool in and promptly has all the little neighbourhood rug rats over every time it gets to 30 degrees.

quote:

---

Originally posted by RK
Hey, thanks, Calvin! That's twice you've helped me out with questions. My wife actually suggested that, if you can believe it. It's not a job for the front yard; I'll have to take it all out back. Should be good revenge against the guy behind us who just put a pool in and promptly has all the little neighbourhood rug rats over every time it gets to 30 degrees.

---

Be aware burning rubber bushes will produce tiny ammounts of really nasty acidic chemicals.

Don't get it on your skin
Work out side and hose the area down afterwards.

Heard of someone else burning bushes, god knows where though.

Wahey.

Maybe it's not such a good idea after all then.

I've never used a flame torch before either. I can barely turn on my (useless, but I digress) compressor without getting nervous!

Take some of the wife's happy pills first then you won't worry so much

Caber

Rather than use a torch direct I think that I would heat a length
of steel to red hot and poke it into the rubber.

This would keep the heat more local.

Paul G

if you can get near an oxy acetaleyne set you can burn them out in seconds. just get them burning and press the trigger and watch it fly out ( i used to do get truck leaf spring eye bushes out this way) but you have to watch out for the burnt rubber some types can cause nasty burns and the stuff is a nightmare to get off anything it gets onto

I have decided against flames of any kind.
And thanks, Caber, but the wife has already slipped some of those into my food the last few days. Work is very stressful right now too. This is supposed to be a diversion. At least that was the original idea.

burning them out is a pretty standard approach, and the only one that will work in many cases

Won't the ally deform from heat?

The rubber will melt a long time before any metal is affected, it's a tried and tested method of removing bonded bushes like the Cortina void bushes of old. You can use a butane blowlamp which will not get hot enough to melt the metal.

removing rubber bushes with fire only way ive really heard that most people can do it at home, and chance for you to play with fire in a productive way and SWMBO already given the green light lots of folk would have a heart attack it thier other half said that lol, on the oher hand cant you get it to a garage or enginering compay and get them pressed out?

Burn them out as already suggested or make up a puller to remove/ refit. Burning is easier.

SWMBO taking diff to machine shop tomorrow since she's off work and I'm not.

Thank you everyone for your help, but me and open flames are not friends and I wouldn't know where to start with a press. I did go out and buy a bigger vise, but I can't think of what I might use it for.