Clonk gone, it was defective inner bushes sliding in the arm

[garyeanderson]

So last month I went to the Museum of Transportation in Brookline for the BCD. Not a lot going on but some nice cars and good talk. Not many pictures unless you want some of the Rolls Royce Shooting Brake that was being moved early in the morning. I took the city roads to and from Brookline. A nice neglected road Rt 203 in the heart of Boston. Anyway the Elan had been making a noise for a while but like most folks, I was kind of hoping it would go away or at least "fix itself". Well the end of the month came and went and I just didn't get around to getting the Elan inspected (a MOT but a lot looser on what is checked, costs $29 a year) in June so its been sitting for a couple weeks. A couple days ago I hooked up the windscreen washer reservoir (just an old squeeze bottle) and today I checked the washer (one of the station pet checks) along with the lights and other required stuff and it all checked out OK. So off I went to the station about 9:30 this morning and its making noise when you change from on throttle to off and back to on. I am really hoping now that there is something rolling around in the boot. Its 5 miles to the station, Beau stayed home as its a bit hot in a dark green Elan with the hardtop on. One truck in front of me at the inspection station so I walked over and mailed some bills out at the post office. When I got back the bay was open and the tester handed me back the key and said to drive it in. All passed nicely, the computer (hooked to the central Mass Registry of Motor Vehicles) had a problem with the 4 digit vin number - 4597 (yes the registration is missing the 26/ , Its been that way for 35 years - another it ain't broke problem) and the guy was puzzled, I said put it in again and verify it. That he did and I was out in 25 minutes after arriving (no appointment needed). Once home I backed the Elan up on a set of ramps for a quick look at the underside, nothing. So I emptied the boot of everything and gave it a good cleaning. Took it for a quick trip to the next street up the road and confirmed it wasn't anything in the boot rolling around. Once home I started to rock the rear wheel forward and back, right side nothing left side clunk. So a quick eyeball under the left side with my right hand on rear wheel I could see BOTH inner control arm bushing sliding back and forth in the control arm. I have not ever seen anything like this before, this is a Rear Spyder non adjustable A arm that is 7 or 8 years old, I may have gotten them from Sypder with the bushings pressed (slid) in? I don't remember. So thats the deal with my clunk, Probably need a new arm. Need to get it apart and measure things up...

p-a

[CBUEB1771]

I could see BOTH inner control arm bushing sliding back and forth in the control arm.

That is novel, what about the other side? You wonder if the wrong tube was used to form the inboard pivots. My experience has been with the pain of gotten worn bushings out of the control arm.

[garyeanderson]

Hi Russ

My experience is the same, once in the bushes are a good way to make you work up a sweat unless you have a hydraulic press. My 8 inch arbor press with the 20 inch handle just laughs at me on some so I have a 40 inch pipe multiplier and sometimes thats not enough (bent handle many times, turn it 180 degrees and bent till straight) so out comes a 3 lb baby sledge hammer. Beau steadies me as I balance on the extension pipe and get the attention of the bushing with some semi solid hits to the top of the arbor. Yes to top of the arbor is a bit mushroomed but still works fine.

As I said I didn't see any movement on the right side but its tough to rock the Elan and look for trouble at the same time. I am clueless with why this has developed, not a lot of miles on it, I think these arms went in when I put the 3.55 in the back, maybe 4 or 5 year and a couple thousand miles and I don't beat it much since then so I think its time to put the Adjustable control arms back in.

p-a

[Spyder fan]

Hi P.A
I'm not a big fan of the Spyder A frames at the moment, but my problem was with the optional upper rear A frames that can be fitted to the Spyder chassis, these are meant to reduce the top loading on the strut and perhaps they work, but the geometry appears to be slightly out as the connection to the top of the hub wore oval in 2 years and 8000 miles, Spyder now do adjustable rose-jointed top rear A frames which they very kindly sold me to replace the parts I had obviously worn out on my 'wild and frenzied track days' (sic)........ my new S4 if it ever gets delivered in time for Donington has adjustable bottom & top A frames, so lets see how long they last.

I will show your post to Andy when I see him next, no doubt he will blame harsh American winters......

This post is just to prove I am not totally biased

[garyeanderson]

S.F.

Water hasn't Ever froze in my garage, it doesn't go out and play after the first Salt (I mean snow), been in rain a couple times. I think it goes less 500 miles a year now and has for the last 5 years anyway. I don't know what to say other than something wasn't right or they wouldn't be sliding.

p-a

11:50 pm
I did some looking in email, seems like I did a bunch of work back in March 2005 when I swapped in a 3.55 for the 3.9, I think thats when the adjustable rear control arms came out and the Spyders rear armd went in. Better then engine mounts but not much.

[rgh0]

Depending on the design some of the poly rear bushes that press in to the A frame may still fit as they are designed to be compressed as pressed in more than the steel tube on rubber bushes

cheers
Rohan

[garyeanderson]

Rohan

No urethane in this case, these are the stock steel/rubber metalstic inner bushs.

[Yum-yum]

Any signs of cracks in the tubes where the bushings press in? Maybe hidden back facing the frame? Hard to believe that both mountings would crack, though.

[garyeanderson]

I dug out the old adjustable rears that I took outof the S2 5 years ago. I knew where they were but was hoping to use them for another project. Then I went to the washer draw and found one thin and one thick 7/16 flats for spacers and said oh yea, I meant to reorder a 100 of each kind 7/16 and 5/16. I forgot I guess, yea thats it, So out to the old stuff In the back and dumped out the first box with another 22 thick flat 7/16 washers so I can do one side. I'm kind of feeling lucky on this problem. Now all I got find are some tools and a bit of motivation. Maybe tomorrow, once out I can toss them in the gunk tank and clean them up to see what the problem may have been caused by. That motivation thing is hindered by the fact that it may be prudent to clean a bit of rust inhibitor off of the underside before starting. wearing gunk or a combo of 90 weight and motor oil both have me thinking clunks aren't so bad.

p-a


old kit at the ready

Ends have been chamfered to clear the 6 inch panasports (with a offset of 34mm inboard) to fit inside the S2 wheel arches

16 July 2011 2:30 udt
Well I played this morning before it got too hot. A little bit over 3 hours to change the one side over. When I got the control arm out the front bush fell out. The second one it took a bit more force, a couple of light taps with a hammer and it was out. New arm in and spaced, I used the old alignment that was on the arms, need to get to Carls to use the alignment gauge and see what it is before getting into the other side and then swap the other side and re-align. The control arm looks fine for the most part, some of the powdercoating is worn but most is still there. I thing that the bush is the problem but as of now haven't miked it, I need to locate some other samples to compare to.

The front bush fell out when the arm was dropped out of the chassis, the back bush needed some light tapping to remove.

Not a lot of ware on the arm itself maybe a new bush and it will be fine???

Jacked up arm to put a load on the arm before tightening the nuts at the outboard end

[garyeanderson]

I have had a look and measured the inner rear bushes that fell out of the control arm at 1.348 inch or there abouts, it is not all that round so tough to measure and say "exactly" x. the other bush that was sill in the arm that I tapped out with a few light taps was some what larger in diameter at 1.352, again this is just a close average. I set the mike at those two values and slid the bush through the gap of the micrometer as I rotated the bush, I would consider these the Maximum of the possible diameter. I didn't find any old inner bushes to measure so I looked here on the forum and found one instance of Richard asking for a diameter and others giving 35mm which is the decimal figure being 1.378 so I guess I don't know what it is as that is not what I was seeing. The bush wasn't .030 inch smaller than the hole. Anyone have a new or old rear inner bush that they could measurer and post the results?

The bushes removed were chamfered on one end to ease installation, this is something I have not done in the past, I believe that when I bought them from Spyder, that the bushes were already installed. I guess it sounded like a good idea at the time.

[rgh0]

Measured a few spare bushes, they are all an average outside diameter around 35.0 to 35.1mm with most being out of round by +/- 0.1 to 0.2 mm

The spare A frames I have measures 34.5mm ID but it is not an orginal one so may not be totally correct.

0.5mm / 20 thou interference fit seems about as tight a fit as i would want.

cheers
Rohan

[garyeanderson]

Hi Rohan

Thanks for that info, makes my day in that a set of 4 metalastic bushes will solve the problem. Toss in a couple more hours to pull the adjustable back out after the new metalastics go back in Spyders.

p-a

[c42]

Having just replaced the A frame bushes on my +2 rear wishbones, chamfering is a must!

Regards
John

[garyeanderson]

Lets see, where was I. I had the Adjustable arm installed and it was close but I wanted a bit more toe in. Saturday was a lot cooler and overcast too so I jacked up the one side and started messing around. After a bit of fiddling it became clear that deja vu was in process and thats why the arms came out the first time. I thought I got the nut started on the front inner control arm bolt so with the drops starting I dropped the Elan on the ground and put it away. Sunday started out a great day so I finished putting it back together. After fighting with the bolt that didn't quite start, I got it out for a ride and said they're coming out! Monday I emailed Ray at RD Enterprises and asked him to send 4 inner rear bushing with the link to this thread. He replied with "there in the mail and th bushes were 1.385 inch in diameter".

Bushes arrived yesterday afternoon and this morning I got a late start at about 5:30. It took a while to set up the press as the bench it was on is gone due to a lack of floor space and the Elite coming home for the first time in 10 years. The new spot for the press was delivered (washed in) in one of the storms, it was a boat pier that was 20 feet long but it got cut in half to move and it then became the back porch for the shed.
I found a good socket to use as the mandrel (1 inch 6 point snap-on) that gripped the rubber and just slid through the openings for the bushes. I couldn't find the flat plate I have but this pad lock was handy and worked out sweet. From first photo to last in the next sequence was 10 minutes. It took half that time to upload the photos bushes being pressed in.

First bush went in nice, I needed to put all my weight on the press to get it to seat. The second bush needed the extender to coax it home. So at 6:30 a.m. I was thinking of swapping out the arm but it was already getting warm so I will have to get back to it, hopefully tomorrow and then I can get the other side out and swap those bushes before they bite me on the ass too.

p-a

[garyeanderson]

66 degrees at 5:30 a.m. so I was motivated this morning. Got the S2 up in the air and swapped out the adjustable arm for the Spyder arm with the new bushes (installed yesterday) that I got from Ray and then started to remove the other arm that still seemed ok, but I want it out to check it anyway. When I got the second Spyder arm removed one bush slid out as I lowered it. The other bush had to be pressed out, 1 out of 4 bushes holding tight, not good!
I needed another socket to press out the bush, an 1 5/16 (34 mm) works nice to set the arm on while the 1 inch socket is used as the mandrel.
Once again one of the new bushes went in with an lot of me jumping on the arbor press handle. The second bush needed the extensions help and more jumping on the handle by me but the initial resistance was finally overcome and the it was just the normal exertion to set it home.

With both arms back in,I set the hubs on jackstands and added a bit of weight in the boot (plus a bit of jouncing to be sure the ride height was right) to torque the nuts on the 8 bolts that secure the lower arms. Work finished by 9:30 and things were all cleaned up, tested and put away by 10:00 and 70 (21 C) degrees.

The sizzors jack is just in the picture and is not supporting anything in this photo.