Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

When I had urethane bushes in various of my suspension arms, I used to grease them regularly and probably replaced them at ~5 yr intervals. I found this to be annoying, but fine.

I now have harder rubber bushes in some arms, sphericals in others. The rubber ones get no attention at all and if they ever die and they are not available, I will just either buy complete new arms of the same type, or maybe buy sphericals to go onto them (which is usually possible). The existing sphericals I have demand regular attention. I clean and grease them at least annually and have replaced some of them at least twice, across the 6 or so years that they have been on the car. Although the front caster rod sphericals have been on the car for nearly 20 years and they are trouble free.

1 minute ago, GTSBoy said:

When I had urethane bushes in various of my suspension arms, I used to grease them regularly and probably replaced them at ~5 yr intervals. I found this to be annoying, but fine.

I now have harder rubber bushes in some arms, sphericals in others. The rubber ones get no attention at all and if they ever die and they are not available, I will just either buy complete new arms of the same type, or maybe buy sphericals to go onto them (which is usually possible). The existing sphericals I have demand regular attention. I clean and grease them at least annually and have replaced some of them at least twice, across the 6 or so years that they have been on the car. Although the front caster rod sphericals have been on the car for nearly 20 years and they are trouble free.

Yeah, that's a pain lol. I'm gonna be going with the Nismo ones that morboost mentioned.

27 minutes ago, GTSBoy said:

When I had urethane bushes in various of my suspension arms, I used to grease them regularly and probably replaced them at ~5 yr intervals. I found this to be annoying, but fine.

I now have harder rubber bushes in some arms, sphericals in others. The rubber ones get no attention at all and if they ever die and they are not available, I will just either buy complete new arms of the same type, or maybe buy sphericals to go onto them (which is usually possible). The existing sphericals I have demand regular attention. I clean and grease them at least annually and have replaced some of them at least twice, across the 6 or so years that they have been on the car. Although the front caster rod sphericals have been on the car for nearly 20 years and they are trouble free.

Slightly off topic question, but this jogged my memory - 

Is there anything special you need to do to inspect the spherical bushes / is it obvious when they become worn? 

I also do the some poly, some spherical and it might be the case that I've had some spherical bushes for maybe 5 years? without any thought/maintenance/they haven't been touched since installed.... 

I've always associated worn bushes with clunking noises, so no clunk, no issue, but I'm guessing this isn't actually best practice lol. 

  • Like 1

With sphericals you have to exercise a little extra paranoia. There's a number of things to be paranoid about. The parranoia may well be true paranoia, but the consequences of anything bad actually happening can be pretty dire, so the effort spent is probably worth it.

This list may not be complete, in fact probably isn't. It's just what rolls around in my head.

If they get scores on them then they can crack. So a piece of grit that manages to get dragged inside might bring you undone.

If they come loose at all (on the adjuster locknuts) then they can rotate to the point where they bid at one end of travel because they're not centered any more. Perhaps, if they have loosened, then this won't load them enough to cause them to fail, but it is well known that they should not be operated such that they reach the limit of rotation.

Depending on what other noises are around, you may not hear them moving if they are significantly worn, but if they are significantly worn, because they are such a small ball relative to the lever length of the arm, a little freeplay can result in quite a loss of control of arm angle/position.

If they get wet they can rust.

  • Like 1
15 minutes ago, GTSBoy said:

With sphericals you have to exercise a little extra paranoia. There's a number of things to be paranoid about. The parranoia may well be true paranoia, but the consequences of anything bad actually happening can be pretty dire, so the effort spent is probably worth it.

This list may not be complete, in fact probably isn't. It's just what rolls around in my head.

If they get scores on them then they can crack. So a piece of grit that manages to get dragged inside might bring you undone.

If they come loose at all (on the adjuster locknuts) then they can rotate to the point where they bid at one end of travel because they're not centered any more. Perhaps, if they have loosened, then this won't load them enough to cause them to fail, but it is well known that they should not be operated such that they reach the limit of rotation.

Depending on what other noises are around, you may not hear them moving if they are significantly worn, but if they are significantly worn, because they are such a small ball relative to the lever length of the arm, a little freeplay can result in quite a loss of control of arm angle/position.

If they get wet they can rust.

Sounds good. 

So I don't need to do anything extreme like attack them with a pry bar to see if there is a mm of travel or anything like that?

If you disconnect the spring&shock unit from the suspension, so you can move the arms up and down more easily, then you can generally feel by hand if there is anything to be worried about at the pivots. Same as if it was any other bushing. A prybar may or may not help with some of the directions that you might want to push things.

Anyway, when they are firm, they are firm. You can really feel that there is nothing going anywhere. If you ever have doubts, you know it feels a little wrong compared to when they were new, then there is probably some play. We're talking really tiny movements here though that the insensitive might just gloss over. You just have to filter out the effects of imagination.

  • Like 1

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • Hi, is the HKS  Tower Bar still available ? negotiable ? 🤔
    • From there, it is really just test and assemble. Plug the adapter cables from the unit into the back of the screen, then the other side to the car harness. Don't forget all the other plugs too! Run the cables behind the unit and screw it back into place (4 screws) and you should now have 3 cables to run from the top screen to the android unit. I ran them along the DS of the other AV units in the gap between their backets and the console, and used some corrugated tubing on the sharp edges of the bracket so the wires were safe. Plug the centre console and lower screen in temporarily and turn the car to ACC, the AV should fire up as normal. Hold the back button for 3 sec and Android should appear on the top screen. You need to set the input to Aux for audio (more on that later). I put the unit under the AC duct in the centre console, with the wifi antenna on top of the AC duct near the shifter, the bluetooth antenna on the AC duct under the centre console The GPS unit on top of the DS to AC duct; they all seem to work OK there are are out of the way. Neat cable routing is a pain. For the drive recorder I mounted it near the rear view mirror and run the cable in the headlining, across the a pillar and then down the inside of the a pillar seal to the DS lower dash. From there it goes across and to one USB input for the unit. The second USB input is attached to the ECUtec OBD dongle and the 3rd goes to the USB bulkhead connected I added in the centre console. This is how the centre console looks "tidied" up Note I didn't install the provided speaker, didn't use the 2.5mm IPod in line or the piggyback loom for the Ipod or change any DIP switches; they seem to only be required if you need to use the Ipod input rather than the AUX input. That's it, install done, I'll follow up with a separate post on how the unit works, but in summary it retains all factory functions and inputs (so I still use my phone to the car for calls), reverse still works like factory etc.
    • Place the new daughterboard in the case and mount it using the 3 small black rivets provided, and reconnect the 3 factory ribbon cables to the new board Then, use the 3 piggyback cables from the daughterboard into the factory board on top (there are stand offs in the case to keep them apart. and remember to reconnect the antenna and rear cover fan wires. 1 screw to hold the motherboard in place. Before closing the case, make a hole in the sticker covering a hole in the case and run the cable for the android unit into the plug there. The video forgot this step, so did I, so will you probably. Then redo the 4 screws on back, 2 each top and bottom, 3 each side and put the 2 brackets back on.....all ready to go and not that tricky really.      
    • Onto the android unit. You need to remove the top screen because there is a daughterboard to put inside the case. Each side vent pops out from clips; start at the bottom and carefully remove upwards (use a trim remover tool to avoid breaking anything). Then the lower screen and controls come out, 4 screws, a couple of clips (including 3 flimsy ones at the top) and 3 plugs on the rear. Then the upper screen, 4 screws and a bunch of plugs and she is out. From there, remove the mounting brackets (2 screws each), 4 screws on the rear, 2 screws top and bottom and 3 screws holding in the small plates on each side. When you remove the back cover (tight fit), watch out for the power cable for the fan, I removed it so I could put the back aside. The mainboard is held in by 1 screw in the middle, 1 aerial at the top and 3 ribbon cables. If you've ever done any laptop stuff the ribbon cables are OK to work with, just pop up the retainer and they slide out. If you are not familiar just grab a 12 year old from an iphone factory, they will know how it works The case should now look like this:
    • Switching the console was tricky. First there were 6 screws to remove, and also the little adapter loom and its screws had to come out. Also don't forget to remove the 2 screws holding the central locking receiver. Then there are 4 clips on either side....these were very tight in this case and needed careful persuading with a long flat screw driver....some force required but not enough to break them...this was probably the fiddliest part of the whole job. In my case I needed both the wiring loom and the central locking receiver module to swap across to the new one. That was it for the console, so "assembly is the reverse of disassembly"
×
×
  • Create New...