Re: [Amc-list] Replacing Strut-Rod Bushings.

["Armand Eshleman" <aje1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Damn, I like your attitude John,
When I get raked over the coals by a business I just meekly walk out of the
place and never set foot in it again.

I worried a bit about my Javelin when I went to the poly pieces in the front
end too, but everyone who's ever looked at my car was impressed with how
intact it still is after spending it's entire life in MN (salty winter
state). I would say it really only has about four and a 1/2 winters on it.
It was built in December of 69. After 73 I had several cheap chevy stand ins
do winter duty so the Javelin would live longer, guess it paid off. I had
one guy look at the front troughs and tell me he thought the car was
extremely intact so I was real happy.

Armand


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Elle" <johnelle@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <amc-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, June 02, 2007 6:36 PM
Subject: [Amc-list] Replacing Strut-Rod Bushings.


> Snip
> I tend to put a lot of highway miles on my old cars, maybe that's it.
> Snip
>
> I dunno, I replaced the strut rod bushings on my Donohue some where
> around in the early '80's and it is still working well, my Spirit has
> had 35,000 miles on it since we went to St. Louis all together in 1999
> and it is still holding up. The AMX has not had a lot of miles put on it
> since I front clipped it and replaced everything in the front end or
> rebuilt them. But other than age, the strut old rod bushings are
> actually in pretty good shape and they had been on the car from about
> 1993 to about 2001 and they are re-usable if needed! Also I am not
> hearing complaints about other cars in the club. The only thing that I
> will not do is put polyurethane strut rod bushings on anything that has
> spent a lot of it's life in the rust belt. 'Specially after I cut the
> front end off of the AMX which gave me a chance to see all of the hidden
> places that were extensively damaged by rust. The visible places were
> scary enough as the front end was beginning to collapse at the
> suspension mounts, the hidden places where the structure was weakening
> with out being visable yet, but stress cracks were beginning to develop
> when you started looking for them convinced me that in no way was I was
> going to subject the uni-body to the stresses caused by the jarring
> action of polyurethane suspension components. There was an internal to
> the box member support that was about 80% eaten away by rust which in
> part was causing the collapsing.
> This is not the worst one I have seen, the Gremlin that one of the
> members bought was so badly rusted in the front suspension components
> that he could not slide a floor jack under the engine cross member any
> longer.
> What I don't like about the one piece units the instructions for
> adjusting the caster have a torque spec. to tighten the jam nuts to, as
> they are all rubber and I would imagine the flexibility of the rubber
> probably varies with aging and manufacturer that looks to me as a
> potential problem area getting the adjustments to hold as a function of
> time. 'Specially with the "Alignment Technician" border line capable of
> reading English or any other language in many cases. And not giving a
> damn the rest of the time, where the 2 piece unit has a sleeve that
> serves as a stop for the nuts to be tightened up against so at least the
> compression can be controlled by the length of the sleeve.
> The last "specialist" that I took my car too had another routine change
> in "technicians" who informed me that by Spirit needed about $400.00 in
> front end work done to it so he could do both a 2 wheel and a 4 wheel
> alignment 'cause the front end had been totally rebuilt and was all out
> of adjustment and when I asked for a reason for this I was informed that
> it was to complicated to understand.
> So I went to the manager and asked him how many cars he had on record
> that I had brought there for service, repairs and tires and when he
> looked it up I had 7 of them. I let him know that he would not see them
> again, and to put my Spirit on the ground I was leaving.
> The new place I went to, another chain auto repair outfit, were a little
> more customer oriented and have done o.k., work when needed and I made a
> deal with them. If they don't piss me off I will bring my cars back and
> buy tires from them.
> 2 months ago the owner commented that I had been a steady customer and
> one of the few that has never gotten mad when they made a mistake or
> screwed something up. My answer surprised them.
> That's cause you admitted it! And then fixed it.
> I'll be back
> John.
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