Thread: Rear Sway Bar + Shocks/Struts...So what's next?

Any tips on replacing the rear trailing arm bushings?

you need fire and grease!

i torched and pried with a screw driver


then clean off the left over rubber

I used a ball joint tool to press in the new bushing


and done

god damn, I gotta take out the whole beam to do this?

Can be done on car easy. Just unbolt the two shocks, unbolt the control arms on either side and the beam in the middle, remove the bolts holding the brake cables to the beam and it should swing down loose enough to work on.

yeah, the only reason i took it all the way off is that I was going to swap it into another car.

Ahh ok, that's good news



Cool, gotcha.

I would have to disagree with that.

I have yet to run the SEL on track with my new poly bushings, but I can say for spirited street driving, my B14 feels the same as it did before. After having the beam/trailing arms detached from the car, it became apparent as to why. You can actual find lateral play in the trailing arms themselves from just pushing on them with your hands. In other words, the arms were designed with a flex factor build into them. Any sort of added stiffness from trailing arm bushings does nothing in terms of lateral movement because of the inherent flex in the metal. It's really the bushings in the lateral link that take all of the lateral pressure. Try and stiffen those, however, and I think the bind that insues does more harm than good. Which goes back to why the panhard works so well with solid heim joints combined with less of a travel arc to minimize bind.

It could be possible, people are seeing improvement with poly trailing arm bushings simple because their old bushing were total shot. The rubber bushings I replaced, relative to other cars I've seen, still had some life in them. The car only has 79,000 miles on it. My guess is that people would get the same improvements they see with poly bushing by simply replacing with stockers. My direct experience with this, for what it's worth.

My car has 180k on the chassis so I'm guessing it can't hurt I should probably replace all bushings on the damn car though.

-G

Like all poly bushings, it will increase NVH. I can't comment on how much in my case because I went from a stock setup to 330lb springs on coilovers in the rear at the same time I did the bushings. The NVH definitely increased in my car. I just can't say to what degree the bushings are contributing to the NVH vs the new spring/damper combo.