Wednesday, March 01, 2006 - 04:48 pm, by: Peter Nitschke(Pen)
I am getting organised to renew most of the rubber parts in the suspension, not because of any specific problems, but just to see if I can get it back to a new car feel.
Thursday, March 02, 2006 - 03:40 pm, by: Michael Keen(Jzz30man)
I wouldn't imagine 4860 part is likely to cause a problem.
I'd be very interested to see a tutorial and at least pics of how to change each of the rubbers, as would many other members. Please late pics Peter.
I have a conversion coming up and may take the car off the road for a while, so it would be a good time for me to do all the rubbers as well. Keen to see a how to do series of pics.
Thursday, March 02, 2006 - 05:19 pm, by: Peter Nitschke(Pen)
Michael, I have talked to a couple of people, all agree it's not worth changing the shocker mounts. As to the rest of the LCA bushes, it's too big a job for me, need a decent press for one thing, and a hoist, so I am having it done. I may still be able to take pics however.
Sway bar bushes are easy, there is already a tut on doing the front ones.
Friday, March 03, 2006 - 05:44 pm, by: Dan McColl(Hoon)
I replaced a couple of strut mounts on my active during the rebuild. Only because they were split. About $200 ea for the rear ones and $700 ea for the front. Luckily I only needed a rear. If they appear fine I wouldn't bother.
I did all my bushes with the car on stands, But I did have access to a good press.
Thursday, May 18, 2006 - 08:22 pm, by: Ben Dowdell(Ben)
hi Peter, how did you go with this? has it improved your ride? what are the most significant changes? did you use vlamos's bushes? what was the cost the replace all the rubber?
Thursday, May 18, 2006 - 10:15 pm, by: Peter Nitschke(Pen)
Ben, I had it done just before the Easter drive to Canberra. I used Vlamos bushes (prices on the VFT web site) and the work was done by Steve at Manta Racing. Labour was around $600 but that also included replacing the copper washers on the rear brake lines, then bleeding the brakes etc and checking on a couple of other things.
As the front LCA bushes had been done previously, I replaced the rest, namely front upper and the rear uppers and lowers. Steve also pulled one of my front lower wishbones off to check how the bushes were holding out after a couple of years as Peddars had suggested that from a visual inspection under the car, one didn't look too good. However the bush was fine which underlines the point that you really can't tell the condition by looking at them while still mounted to the car. Andrew Vlamos was good enough to supply me with a spare front LCA bush in case it did need to be replaced and that bush has since been returned.
Moving on to the job.
The original bushes that Steve pulled out actually looked to be in pretty fair condition, much as Andrew Vlamos had told me when I ordered them.
Steve's comment was that the Vlamos bushes were more substantial than the old ones that came out, I didn't see them side by side for myself however.
As the car is my daily driver, Steve also worked a bit late so I could have the car back the same day - I was much impressed!
End result, the car is now smoother which is quite noticeable over small harsh bumps in the road. It was unusual at first to feel the bushes soak up the impact rather than just the abrupt bash of the old hard rubber.
The car now also tracks smoother and is a bit quieter as less jarring is transferred to the body frame.
While the old bushes weren't cracked or anything the way the front ones do, I could have probably left them on for a couple more years, but as I intend to keep the car for as long as I can, I decided to do it now and have a couple of years of extra smoothness.
In summary, I consider this to be a very worthwhile job for those of us that love our Soarer and want it to be the best it can be.
Most people would probably get even more improvement that I did, as in a lot of respects my car seems "young" in comparison to most.
Many thanks to both Andrew for making the bushes available to the Soarer community and to Steve for excellent work. All highly recommended.
Friday, May 19, 2006 - 08:32 am, by: Andrew Vlamos(Vlam)
I must take this opportunity not only to thank Peter but all the Soarer community for supporting the Vlamos (VFT) bushes in particular Rob Hayden & Peter Scott from Planet Soarer. Without you guys and your continued support, production of these bushes will not be possible!!!....I know that the specifications (rubber) used to produce my bushes is far superior to that used on the OEM bushes as we have tested this in the lab...testimate to this is the removal of Peter Scotts bushes and those on my car which were replaced with factory bushes and in no time had to be replaced again with mine. http://www.planetsoarer.com/bushes/bushupdate.htm One cannot realise or appreciate the difference replacing the very aged and ever hardening old bushes makes to these awesome machines. If anybody wants to checkout what its like they are more than welcome to drive my car anytime, just call me up and we can arrange 0411227007 http://www.vftbushes.com/
I renewed all my bushes with Andrew Vlamos ones. I found that only the front lowers and the rear uppers really needed it, but as I'm so far from the source I thought I'd just do them all. The car feels fantastic now (I also replaced all my air struts) and Andrew was incredibly helpful by email all along the way. If you're going to keep your car for a long time you've just got to do it. I couldn't believe how bad some of my bushes had become.
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