Polyurethane Bushings?

[todd1561]

Thanks once again for the the info, I really appreciate you taking the time to include the images and drawings! I hear what you're saying about the upper control arms, probably more hassle than it's worth. My plan was to take all the components to a sand blaster and then I'd POR-15 everything. Unless the blaster can't do it without destroying the bushings I may just skip the ones on the upper arm per your suggestion.

Thanks again,
Todd

[Mark D]

No problem with the info and pics :-)

The guy sand blasting your parts should have no trouble stripping the old paint off the UCA without damaging the rubber bushings.

POR-15 is good stuff... I used it on the frame rusted areas and a few other suspension parts that I couldn't get powder coated. I think the general concensus is that powder coating is still stronger and more chip resistant than POR15 though, so if there are parts that you've got sand blasted that could be powder coated instead of POR15 painted I'd recommend that route. The lower control arms and anti-roll bar seem to get hit with a lot of rocks and dirt as you're going down the road so I was especially interested in getting those parts powder coated. I also tore down my steering rack and did the center tube and the two outer arms.

Most places are willing to mask off any areas you don't want coated like the ball end of the steering arms, threaded holes, or the inner surface of the ball joint tapers on the steering knuckles.

If you haven't used POR15 before make sure to follow the instructions to the letter.

[vtdmc]

What is the popular opinion? Are polyurethane bushings better than the rubber bushings? Is it personal opinion?

[DMCMW Dave]

What is the popular opinion? Are polyurethane bushings better than the rubber bushings? Is it personal opinion?

Personal opinion and trade-offs.

OEM style - last a long time (other than sway bar ends), quiet, zero maintenance, engineered compromise between ride and handling.
Urethane - "Crisper" handling/steering feel cost of a harsher ride. Need to be greased peridically or they can be squeaky.

[ed uding]

Mark for the front pu busings we have special one,s.
With a cut out the top, you can install it simple.
The one on the photo are the rear one's.


Regards Ed
www.delorean.eu

The other bushings you're thinking of are the what's used in the lower control arm and also in the LCA support brackets that Ed sells.

The note I made about them needing to be pressed in is because it's extremely difficult to push them in by hand and get them all the way into the lower control arm sleeve. Without a press of some type you'll end up with a gap in the middle between the two bushings and the whole assembly will be too wide to fit back into the frame. I had to use the press to get everything to seat fully into the lower arm so that it wasn't too wide.

IE:





The lower control arm supports brackets that Ed sells uses the same type of bushing as well, but those can be installed by hand.



The upper control arm bushings are the only ones that have an actual metal sleeve on the outside of the bushing since the upper arm itself has no sleeve.


If I had to do it all over again I would probably have left the upper control arms with the stock rubber bushings. I powder coated all my suspension components and anything rubber would have been destroyed when they baked the powder so that was the only reason I removed the old rubber bushings. If you simply want to replace with poly I don't know if the upper bushings are worth the trouble. The rubber is very firm to begin with and I don't see much advantage with the poly. NOS rubber upper bushings aren't available so if yours are dry rotted or worn and you don't want to replace the whole upper arm (comes with bushings already installed) then poly would be the cheaper alternative.

[Mark D]

Yeah sorry that picture I referenced is a little confusing. The ones I ordered for the lower control arms have the notch like you are talking about. To get them pushed all the way in though I still needed a press. It could have been because I loaded them up with quite a bit of silicone grease to prevent squeaks. The grease had to be displaced before both halves of the bushing would seat completely.

Notch.jpg

[ed uding]

Yeah sorry that picture I referenced is a little confusing. The ones I ordered for the lower control arms have the notch like you are talking about. To get them pushed all the way in though I still needed a press. It could have been because I loaded them up with quite a bit of silicone grease to prevent squeaks. The grease had to be displaced before both halves of the bushing would seat completely.

Notch.jpg

http://dmctalk.org/images/smilies/thumbup.gif

[dmc6960]

Interesting. I had similar issues with the poly bushings I got from the UK. In my case, I was easily able to get both bushing halfs fully inserted, but due to the size of the sleeve in the LCA they still technically stuck out to far even with the forward end slit as pictured. They physically needed to seat further into the LCA. The only way I was able to accomplish this, was to actually cut all around the outer lip, thinning out the bottom of it extremely carefully. This allowed the bushings to seat deep enough to fit into the frame. A few months later I noticed a drawback of this method as one half of the bushing has now been completely pulled inside both of the LCAs. The outer lip had been compromised too much to support the twisting force of the LCA. This behavior has been observed on other poly bushings, though none from DMCMW/DMCEU that I've noticed yet though. I need to take apart my front suspension again this spring for frame rust mitigation and other issues; and I'm contemplating going back to OEM style rubber for the LCAs, or Ed's poly bushings from DMCEU/DMCMW. I have not decided which yet.

[jmettee]

I need to take apart my front suspension again this spring for frame rust mitigation and other issues; and I'm contemplating going back to OEM style rubber for the LCAs, or Ed's poly bushings from DMCEU/DMCMW. I have not decided which yet.

I JUST finished this task this weekend - front end refurb & rust mitigation. I boxed the LCAs & went with poly bushings only on the sway-bar. I decided against poly on the control arms due to hearing some end up having issues after some driving & also worrying about dumping a lot pf force back into the "fragile" frame by using the firmer poly bushings. I replaced all bushings with OEM rubber. I probably didn't have to replace any of the pivot bushings on either the UCA or LCA because they still looked pretty good, but the sway-bar bushings were definitely shot (as Dave mentioned above). The rubber was all mis-shaped & at least 1 had the rubber pulled off the steel collar.

[Chris 16409]

Back when I did my bushings, Houston had not come out with the reproduction suspension bushings yet. It turned out to be about the same price to buy the SuperFlex poly bushings from Martin as buying NOS bushings from DMC. Back then, each bushing was like $50. Now the reproductions are ridiculously affordable. If I were to do it now, I would probably go with the standard rubber bushings, except for the trailing arm ones.