Drag Strut Bush Failure

[ukkid35]

At the beginning of the year I replaced the bushes with new rubber bushes from PartsForTVRs, formerly RG

They have failed already, whereas the previous bushes lasted at least 7 or 8 years

There's been no change to the way I have been using the car

I don't want to replace these with poly, so I've bought some more rubber bushes, but from a different supplier

What has your experience been?

[ukkid35]

Good points, but not relevant in this case

I always lower the car, and settle the car, before tightening all suspension bolts

The welds are not visible as they are camouflaged by the very poorly applied POR15

I'll probably brush/peel it off and put another coat on sometime over the winter

I might even try spraying it on this time, although I doubt it will look any better

[ukkid35]

spitfire4v8 said:

Why don't you want to use poly bushes ? It's one of the very few areas on a cerb where the polybush works brilliantly, virtually fit and forget and solves many of the brake judder issues that plague these cars (doesn't in itself cause judder but a soft squidgy bush there exaggerates it massively).

I'm very circumspect about where I fit poly bushes

Generally I like to stick with rubber bushes, unless there's good reason not to, the obvious example being the rear diff bush, I also use them on the ARB mounts

However I'm not comfortable using them where the bush is designed to absorb some shock loading, because if they are absorbing less of the shock then something far more expensive is likely to be doing so

I will bear in mind what you are saying about the drag strut bushes, but since I've already bought some new rubber ones, I'm going to fit them first

Thankfully the only time I've ever experienced brake judder on my Cerb is after fitting brand new discs; the judder disappeared as soon as I put some used discs back on, the new ones clearly weren't balanced

[ukkid35]

So how does a Powerflex bush work in the drag strut?

Does it rotate on the inner sleeve?

Does it rotate within the drag strut? Or is it fixed?

If it's fixed, what is the correct way to fit it? Do you need a press (or vice)?

[ukkid35]

mrniceguy351 said:

Are these the type of rubber bushes you have to remove with a blowtorch?

I've replaced every bush on the car, the only one that is really tricky is the rear diff bush

I've not had to use a blowtorch once