Thread: Suspension bush life expectancy

I find it funny that everyone is always running around changing bushes and letting the masses know how such and such bushes made so much difference.
The last time I changed the bushes in my Defender,I took careful notice of not only the bushes,but also the bolts that were used at all the termination points.
All the bolts were carefully measured and compared against the original diameter.All the bolts showed wear,ranging from .002" through to .016".When they were put into the centre of new bushes,there was still considerable play,and under load,this play would quickly multiply and quickly compromise any new bush.
I replaced all the bolts and alleviated multiple points of excess play in the suspension.
And I do agree that bushes are not what they used to be.I can chew out a set of genuine front radius arm bushes within 1,000km.But the poor old girl does get abused more than most

Originally Posted by LowRanger

[snip]

All the bolts were carefully measured and compared against the original diameter.All the bolts showed wear,ranging from .002" through to .016".When they were put into the centre of new bushes,there was still considerable play,and under load,this play would quickly multiply and quickly compromise any new bush.
I replaced all the bolts and alleviated multiple points of excess play in the suspension.

[snip]

Ditto, I think I've replaced almost all the suspension bolts because of this.

I also hate using short shank (short grip length) threaded bolts in double shear, airframe bolts for example, come in 1/16" increments for a reason, but being metric we're sort of stuck.

Originally Posted by isuzurover

I have swapped almost all bushes over to Super Pro, and expect them to last a longer than OEM rubber.

I'm starting to change mine over to Superpro and I've noticed that they have some design changes over the OEM bushes.

Here you can see they put a groove to allow better flex I guess.


The radius arm to diff bushes are a lot different. You can see they fill the whole void between bracket and radius arm. The OEM rubber seem not to do this and it's only the metal inner bush that touches the bracket.


OEM bush

Originally Posted by inside

I'm starting to change mine over to Superpro and I've noticed that they have some design changes over the OEM bushes.

Here you can see they put a groove to allow better flex I guess.


The radius arm to diff bushes are a lot different. You can see they fill the whole void between bracket and radius arm. The OEM rubber seem not to do this and it's only the metal inner bush that touches the bracket.


OEM bush

Yes and the SuperPro bush for radius arm to chassis allows quite a bit of flex without as much deformation.I run them on mine and like them a lot.

yea im sold was going to replace all my bushes as well got poly bushes in
they have done about 20,000 hard ks up in the gulf lot of mud and water
genearel abuse they now seem to have gone hard and showing signs of cracking wasent real happy from the start with them seem way to harsh
think i will give the super pro a shot as previosly stated will replace all bolts and nuts as well thanks for the pics

In my pics above I have installed the front radius arms to chassis bushes incorrectly. The grove needs to be on the body side, I fixed that up last weekend.

Here's some pics of the rear, they're quite a bit different from the originals. I also did the A frame ball joint while I was there.

You can just make out the top A frame to chassis bush in the distance.

I changed all the suspension bushes this weekend with new genuine ones. The rear trailing arm to chassis and front radius arm to chassis bushes had badly distorted/compressed. I also found the front radius arm to axle bushes looked fine, but had gone very soft, (it was very easy to compress them with a prybar).

The 110 feels a lot better on the road, less high frequency vibration, (the best way I can think of describing it is that it felt like I had very low profile tyres fitted).

However now the car is vibrating slightly under heavy acceleration in 3rd/4th, (I can feel it through my feet). So I have parked it in the garage and opened a beer

Cheers,

Tim

Originally Posted by inside

[snip]

Here's some pics of the rear, they're quite a bit different from the originals.

They are, IMNSHO the most cleverly designed bush for the rear training arm I've seen.

About six or seven years ago I was talking to one of the engineers from Fulcrum/Super Pro about some other bushes and casually mentioned that I thought that particular bush was of a very smart design.
The bloke I was talking to was pretty chuffed as he'd designed it.