Advice needed for suspension bush change

[Boosh]

Hi all,
As given away by the title, I need to change the front offside lower suspension arm bush (the one at the front). I understand it's a fairly straightforward job and feel confident doing it by myself. I think I've got all the bits I need, including a threaded bar to pop the bush out and back in. What I would need are a few pointers: do I need to get the wheel off and compress the spring, or do I put the car on a ramp and use its own weight? How long should it take? Etc.
Thanks for your help, just need to wait for the weather, now...

Boosh.

[Slimy]

This reply is based on an assumption that your suspension being pretty similar to most other FWD cars. First off, the suspension arm has to come out, you can't do it on the car. But you don't necessarily have to remove the strut to do that. Depending on how it's fixed to the hub, you can either unbolt the ball joint, or use a splitter to detach the ball joint from the hub. Obviously you'll have to take the wheel off and have the car in the air, but you shouldn't need to do anything else there. Be careful when you move the hub out of the way, it's easy to detach the drive shaft by accident if you apply too much force.

Once the hub is away from the arm, unbolt the arm from the chassis and remove it. (the anti roll bar may also connect to the arm, unbolt that too). Do the business on the bush and put it back together again.

It would make sense to do the other bush while you're there though, it will be the same age and if it's not weak already it won't be long before it fails. I'd also recommend buying some new bolts for putting it back together, and also soak the current bolts in plusgas the night before.

In terms of time, maybe an hour to get it dismantled, up to two to extract the bushes (with a fair bit of frustration thrown in) then half an hour to put it back together? The other side will be half that because you'll be familiar with the process.