A-Arm Bushing FAILURE

[spmdr]

Back in 2016 I came across a Tiger that

NEEDED the front suspension rebuilt.

The A-Arm bushings were Crumbling away!

Some of the bushings had NO remains of the material

between the inner and out steel.

What material I did find appeared to be

Blue/Purple Polyurethane.

I wrote it off as a fluke, not a common failure.


Just Days ago, Steve Alcala told me his Newly

Completed, Lord Rootes Winning Tiger, upper A-Arm

Bushings have crumbled away!

Steve Scrambled to replace the A-Arms only to find

his Spare set have bushings that are not long for

this world TOO!

Check your A-Arm bushings!

DW

2016 picture

 

[sunalp]

Always good advice as they can go bad without your knowledge. Never had the rubber ones do that
though, they just get noisy. I put poly lower bushing in my Alpine about 10 years ago and they seem to
be alright. I have to change the uppers (noisy) so I'll check the lowers at the same time.

Does this seem to happen more commonly to race cars?

 

[bernd_st]

Looks like an assembly mistake to me. The poly bushings do require a good smear of that white grease/ assy lube provided with kit. If not the'll wear out rather quickly...

 

[alpine_64]

What brand are the bushes?

The original superpro bushes for the draglink on the alpine/ other rootes cars lacked the honing/ cross hatching inside the bush which caused them to bind... This was resolved for the next iteration... Could it be a similar issue?

 

[Warren]

Of course it's operator or installer error...
It was an error to buy that brand!

 

[Shannon Boal]

Are the original type bushings available......are the Sunbeam Specialties bushings OK?

 

[spmdr]

Back when I was rebuilding Street car front ends (1990s) , ALL of the parts were

inconsistent, in availablity AND Quality.

With the Race cars, I made over-sized lower Fulcrum pins and custom Bushings.

Through the years, the available A-Arm Bushings that I found have Still been less than OEM quality.

As I recall, the last Street front end I did, I used NOS OEM Metalastic Bushings,

...that the owner was VERY fortunate to find.

YMMV good luck.

DW

 

[Shannon Boal]

Back when I was rebuilding Street car front ends (1990s) , ALL of the parts were

inconsistent, in availablity AND Quality.

With the Race cars, I made over-sized lower Fulcrum pins and custom Bushings.

Through the years, the available A-Arm Bushings that I found have Still been less than OEM quality.

As I recall, the last Street front end I did, I used NOS OEM Metalastic Bushings,

...that the owner was VERY fortunate to find.

YMMV good luck

What can you recall about the lower custom fulcrum pins and bushings? Steel bar stock in brass/bronze/ oilite bushings?

 

[spmdr]

Here is one example of a lower pin compared with stock.

I have used different material shapes and dimensions, over the years.

Bushings were made from Delrin.

Unlike the stock pins, I don't know of anyone who has broken any I have made.

DW