polyurethane bushings?

[Gary Burch]

I was thinking of replacing the front bushes on my car with polyurethane ones. In the process of doing some research on the subject, I have come across some horror stories of the bushings seizing to the torsion bar and ripping the mounts out of the car. The poor owners say if they had known this could happen they would have gone for the Elephant Racing low friction control arm mounts. Granted the Elephant units are 3 times as much, if you weigh this against ripping the mounts out of the car, it seems cheap.

My question is, is this a common problem? Should one avoid the polyurethane mounts, even if you provide for adequate lubrication?

[John Straub]

Gary,

If you put them in correctly, you should not have a problem.

[kucharskimb]

gary, i'm happy to help. this is a future project of mine and would like the opportunity to practice... i mean "assist" you with your vehicle.

matt

[kucharskimb]

gary
i did the entire thing this weekend. well, for the last 5 days on and off. front and rear bushings, new torsions. sways are coming today. corner balance tomorrow.

so, i have some techniques for you, since mine was the practice vehicle.

while the bushings were time consuming to sand out, it was not difficult. i used a die grinder with a sanding bit to remove material from the bushings, then used a dremel with a ball bit to cut channels in the bushings for grease. even installed the zerk fittings...

if you need to borrow the die grinder, let me know.

you can check it out this weekend!!

later
matt

[Gary Burch]

Thanks Matt. I look forward to seeing it.