Bushings for Type4

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raygreenwood
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Joined: Wed Jan 22, 2003 12:01 am

Re: Bushings for Type4

Post by raygreenwood »

I have pictures of this coming as well. I reused the original center steel tube bushing. I pressed the combined steel and bonded rubber bush out of the steel tube.

One of them I had to slice the outer steel tube in two spots with a hacksaw and peel the outer metal shell of with pliers.

Then I used a razor box knife to slice the rubber off of the steel inner bushing for the most part. I realized very quickly that my Bosch Oscillating tool with the scraper blade made short work of this...about a minute! :D

To really clean up the steel bushing and make its OD uniform. I mounted it on a piece of threaded rod of the right size with two nuts and a washer and put it in the drill press at about 1500 rpm and ran a file on the OD and checked with a caliper.

Once the OD of the steel tube was within about .002" max of the ID of the Delrin bushing. I pressed it in., Really .001" of interference is plenty.

I made the OD of the delrin bushing uniform and the correct diameter by the same method...on a mandrel with a file in the drill press.

You will notice that I ground the steel bushing and the delrin bushing flush with each side of the control arm. This means that I shortened the steel bushing by about .250".

I did this because the only parts that will really wear out are the flanges. Its easier and cheaper to replace the flanges of the bushings every 50k miles or so if necessary.....than to replace the center section....and the level of support is the same. Ray
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