[Amc-list] Replacing Strut-Rod Bushings.

["John Elle" <johnelle@xxxxxxxxx>]

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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