Wishbone Rim Clearance

[phil1800]

Finally got some time to work on this issue again. I have altered the position of the Metalastik bushes, so that they are better ‚centered‘ in the wishbone. This gave me a clearance of 1,6 mm, which was 0,15 mm before. It also enabled to use the thin washers between the bearing housing and the bushes. For now I am fine with the setup, but I will replace all wishbone bushes in the next step. My understanding is to use Poly on the inners, but metalastic on the outers? Is this what the group would recommend?

Thanks!!

Philipp

[snowyelan]

We all have our opinions. Mine are probably not typical to the group.
I don't use poly anywhere. It changes how the bushings comply from deforming rubber to adding a sliding motion. The amount of rubber in all of the OE lotus bushings was minimal to begin with so I don't mess with it.

[fatboyoz]

Hi Philipp,
Have had poly bushes throughout my S4 for the past 12 years and 60,000 miles. No complaints.
However, the last time I drove the car with metalastik bushes, was 1987. So can't really compare the two.
Cheers,
Colin.

Finally got some time to work on this issue again. I have altered the position of the Metalastik bushes, so that they are better ‚centered‘ in the wishbone. This gave me a clearance of 1,6 mm, which was 0,15 mm before. It also enabled to use the thin washers between the bearing housing and the bushes. For now I am fine with the setup, but I will replace all wishbone bushes in the next step. My understanding is to use Poly on the inners, but metalastic on the outers? Is this what the group would recommend?

Thanks!!

Philipp

[Roland]

So I've polybushed my whole car and it is fine, however the only bushes that worked for me were SuperPro. Other brands I had problems with fit and material.

The outer rear bush I found the most difficult to fit. I bought a new set of rear wishbones and custom adjusted/filed the inner face of the wishbone to get a perfect fit. I didn't use a washer against the aluminium strut because I didn't want to remove material from the strut. Time will tell how many miles this set up will take.

If the outer rear bush does start giving me issues my next move will be to machine my own outer rear polybushes in a similar fashion to the Col Croucher approach from Elantrikbits.

Regards

Roland