Poly-Ball Bushings - Hot Parts

Well Last night I was bored and decided to carefully put together the bushings and lube in my new poly ball bushings. Thought it would take 5 minutes but it ended taking 30-40 instead! (That grease was NASTY stuff to wash off)

Anyhow...
- I have yet to put them on the car.
- The bushings were very hard to put in! Had to slide the pin in after most of the bushings were assembled so the air could escape.

Even with with bushing pieces in as tight as I could get them, they were still not quite 100% as tight as they should be (they were sticking out a wee little bit). I couldn't get them any closer together.

Will this cause any problems upon install? They'll squeeze into the brackets im sure, but because the bushings bulge out a tad making the fit tight will there be any problems down the road?

For anyone that has bought these parts, did yours do the same thing and were you able to get them fully tight and together? Mine were about 1-2mm from being fully closed.



For anyone that wants to know what kind of bushing im talking about:
The bushing is 4 pieces. 2 Cups around a poly ball with a pine through all 3.

They are designed to be very tight. What you are experiencing is the combination of the lube and the press in fit wanting to push the bushing out of the arm. Once they are installed in the car they will compress into place and you will not have anymore gaps.

i have some myself and they work great.

Got them in today. First impressions are great! I could notice them most while doing a fast long bend (ie. onramps). Also the rear seems less noisy and bit more solid. They even passed the girlfriend test, she noticed a difference in feel on the turns. Took a little bit of work to get them in but nothing a little elbow grease couldnt fix.
I'll post back after doing some much harder turns when I feel more comfortable and can find the space to :)

Something I've noticed with this design...less is more. I figured I'd get a thick coating of grease on the bushings prior to installation. Forget about it! The tolerances are too tight for a thick layer.

I used a very thin layer, and it did finally go in. What I did notice was my "balls" had large casting nubs :eek: (sounds painful) which were causing the "sockets" to push outward. I shaved these nubs off, making the "ball" round again, and it helped quite a bit.

"In a leading test, 4 out of 5 surgeon generals prefer round balls to nubby balls.":D

Even with only a slight coat of grease, I've never had an issue. I recently regreased them (my version had zerk fittings) with marine grease (Green Stuff) and have loved them since.

Yea I had to shave the nubs off the balls too a bit ;) That did help for some of the pieces.
I used a decent amount of grease and found the best thing was to slide the pin in part way so air can escape and then slide the pin in the rest of the way. To get the LCA's in where it was really tight i used the jack, much much easier than pushing up at funny angles in the driveway :D

What is the recommended grease to use?

Any synthetic marine grade grease is fine. I use Green Stuff.:p