Poly bushes

[Nzchim]

Ok so it's now 3 months of ownership and I'm tackling my first proper mechanical job. It failed its MOT, or WOF as we say down under. Needs a new front upper ball joint. After much swearing and research here I have the ball joint off. I also purchased a complete set of poly bushes when I first bought the car so now seems a good time to start that job too.
I have the upper wishbone out and have taken out the rubber bushes.
In my poly bush pack I have 4 metallistic ones. I seem to recall that these have to go in the wishbones near the exhaust. On the front upper wishbone does that mean both old ones will be replaced with the metallistic rubber ones?

I can see how the jobs easily escalate once you start.. brake discs look ready for replacement too.

[phazed]

I have replaced all bushes on both my chims with Polybush/Supaflex and never were there any Metaplastic bushes.

I would contact the supplier and ask why. The whole point is to replace all with Poly, doesn't make sense to me.

[N7GTX]

As Phazed says Did all mine with poly black and to protect the bush nearest the exhaust on both sides, 2 sheets of heat resistant material were included with a couple of jubilees type clips to hold the sheets to the chassis rails. Easy to make some up if not included.

[Nzchim]

Thanks. I've checked where I had previously seen the info on rubber bushes being used in the upper wishbones and it's from TVR parts. I purchased the whole polybush set from them.

[wuckfitracing]

They should provide a heat shield cloth that wraps around the top of the assembly that prevents the exhausts frying them.

[BIG DUNC]

I agree that if they sell a poly bush set it should be the whole set and a heat shield if required.

That said, I am not sure of the advantage of poly bush on these. The rubber bushes are so thin they are not going to be moving around loads.

[TJC46]

BIG DUNC said:

I agree that if they sell a poly bush set it should be the whole set and a heat shield if required.

That said, I am not sure of the advantage of poly bush on these. The rubber bushes are so thin they are not going to be moving around loads.

Beauty of the poly bushes is they are so easy and quick to change.

If you go all poly then you definitely need as much heat shielding on the 2 rear upper front wishbone bushes as you can get.

Here is a pic of mine which was shielded, but obviously not enough.

[BIG DUNC]

Poly bushes are easier to fit, but to be fair fitting my rubber ones only required a vice and some correctly sized sockets.

The difficult part was removing the old bushes and what you are about to fit to makes no difference to how difficult it is to remove the old ones.

[Nzchim]

Thanks for the advice guys. It'll be standard rubber bushes in the top wishbones and polys everywhere else then... cause that's all I have! Quite pleased with my progress as complete dismantling of one side took 2 days, the other took 2 hours (didn't have to remove the top ball joint though).

I've decided the shocks could probably do with a refurb as well. I have the yellow bilsteins and the car has done about 50,000. I've found a bilstein supplier who will refurb them, shipping new ones or the Gaz ones I've read about will be huge money. The refurb will be about 160 pounds a shock. Anyone done this?

[phazed]

Gaz charge £50.00 a corner for a refurb iirc.

[N7GTX]

TJC46 said:

BIG DUNC said:

I agree that if they sell a poly bush set it should be the whole set and a heat shield if required.

That said, I am not sure of the advantage of poly bush on these. The rubber bushes are so thin they are not going to be moving around loads.

Beauty of the poly bushes is they are so easy and quick to change.

If you go all poly then you definitely need as much heat shielding on the 2 rear upper front wishbone bushes as you can get.

Here is a pic of mine which was shielded, but obviously not enough.

The heat shield material supplied does not seem very good. Having said that, the stainless manifolds were very close to the rails and after about a year even the new engine mountings had sagged a tiny bit meaning they ended up touching causing vibration through the car. I ended up fitting spacers that raised the engine quite a bit and the heat shield damage seems to be a lot less now.
Fortunately the poly bushes were undamaged

[motul1974]

More money I know, but how about looking at the Tuscon 2 spec Bilstein? Rave reviews of them on here about a year ago, so much so I bought a set myself. Not tried them yet as in the middle of a chassis refurb, but everything about them seems to make a lot of sense.

[Nzchim]

I checked the reviews and they sound great, I asked my local bilstein supplier about new shocks rather than the refurb... 3 months to get them to NZ! .. I enjoy driving too much to wait that long so the refurbed originals will be going back on in a week.