Thread: Slight change in direction off/on throttle?

I have just replaced all the bushes on my rear. A-frame ball joint and trailing arm bushes at both ends. The flogged trailing arm bushes gave me te same symptoms as you. If yours are new, did you use new lock-nuts also? It could be that you need to nip the nuts back up.

You said you have kinked trailing arms and also slotted bushes... Why?

I thought there was only one model of Super-Pro bush for the chassis - trailing arm, and that its straight through. I am aware of some other bushes that have an angled hole, but not Super-Pro.

Jon

Perhaps slotted was the wrong term, they have a circular groove on one side of the bush to allow a bit more movement.

I had a crawl under there after work and one of the trailing arm nuts was a bit loose so tightened that and tightened everything else front and back including the mounting nuts but no luck, after a test drive it's still occurring.

I think it might be the trailing arm bushes at the diff end because i have Gwyn Lewis arms and they came with new standard rubber bushes so i left them in, i think there is some play there. I'll put in new super pro bushes as i already have them and i'll do the a-frame ones while i'm at it.

Will report back on my findings

Ok, now I know what you mean.

I too have the Gwynn Lewis arms and SuperPro at both ends. I also no longer have any lateral movement.

Unless the A frame ball joint is seriously dead, it shouldn't induce any lateral movement, only fore/aft.

I'd suggest when you do the A-frame ball joint you also replace the two wishbone bushes at the chassis end of the A frame. I used SuperPro in there too.

R
Jon

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Yep, you all called it, it was the trailing arm bushes to blame... it didn't even last 1000kms! I guess the extra articulation doesn't work so well with factory rubber bushes, hopefully the super-pro ones i put in will last longer.

did you tighten the bolts when all 4 wheels were back on the ground? I neglected to do that with my commodore years ago and the bushes tore themselves up pretty quick

Originally Posted by GoldCloverLeaf

Yep, you all called it, it was the trailing arm bushes to blame... it didn't even last 1000kms!

Thanks for letting us know the problem. It really helps others coming in and looking for answers to their own problems when someone posts what was eventually found.

And the picture makes it clear.

The early failure may not have been from the extra articulation, but possibly from incorrect installation - it is important to tighten the bolt after the suspension is loaded and at normal height, and sometimes people forget this. (This means the rubber is unstressed in the centre of the movement, so there is the smallest amount of distortion in each direction.)

John

To be honest, i didnt bother jacking it up to remove or replace the trailing arms, i just did one at a time.

Before tightening i did bounce the suspension a couple of times to settle so should be ok.

Ideally you would do up all the bushes loosely then drive up and down the driveway then tighten but we'll see how it goes

That's another good thing about the Superpro bushes. Because the steel bush in the middle is a separate item and free to rotate, you don't have to worry about vehicle height when tightening up the bolts.

Steve