Cheap poly trailing arm bushings

MYBAD79

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Joined
Mar 23, 2008
Messages
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sunny Florida
OK, I installed these bushings back in 2006 or so, didn't touch the wheel bearing or anything else as that was fine...... had these trailing arms on my 79 for maybe 3-4 years and maybe 2000 miles.... then replaced these with arms that I rebuilt with new bearings etc, JohnnyJoints instead of a bushing. So since 2010 or so I had these on my shelf and now I finally decided to rebuild these.
So I took these apart as usual and when removing the front poly bushing (not EnergySuspension, some other "brand", probably Ecklers or MidAmerica) the bushing crumbled to small pieces....
Bottom line: the front bushing takes load not only up/down, it's not only rotating, it's also being side loaded during suspension travel.... cheap brittle poly just doesn't do the job.... good to know if you have your arms rebuild.... I'm not using poly for anything anymore ever since my strut rod bushings fell out a few years ago.... except EnergySuspension body mounts, those are good.
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Not the first time I've seen this. I'm not sure what these molders are using but it's really not magic to make good poly parts. It's either the material, the process or both. I suspect both.
 
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