Rear end Rebuild

I'm doing a lot of stuff with the car this winter.. suspension/brakes/power.. right now I'm rebuilding the rear end..

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I typically do my own powdercoating.. the subframe won't fit in my oven, I'm dropping it off at the powder coater tomorrow, all that's left are the trailing arms.

Looks like you built your own polys! Why did you go that way instead of off the shelf parts? Cost? If yes then could you let me know how and what the cost difference was? I'd really love to replace my entire suspension bushing setup.

Oh and what powder coat system are you using?


Nice work!

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Originally Posted by Rakuny

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Mind captioning these?

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Originally Posted by AdamVR4

Mind captioning these?

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1 and 2 are "poured poly" bushings. IE he poured polyurathane into the existing bushing shell, basically how I used to do "window weld" bushings back in the day. 3 is the mess you make drilling into a poly bushing and get it too hot, he's enlarging the center hole to fit a different size pin.

What bushings are those monsters? Obviously I've not done much rear end work :)

Poured poly? Care to elaborate? I didn't know you could mix your own.

I'd much rather go that route than the window stuff. The poly I think would hold up best.

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Originally Posted by anyonebutme

1 and 2 are "poured poly" bushings. IE he poured polyurathane into the existing bushing shell, basically how I used to do "window weld" bushings back in the day. 3 is the mess you make drilling into a poly bushing and get it too hot, he's enlarging the center hole to fit a different size pin.

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I used Pam non-stick cooking spray on the top spacer of the bushing to fill it in FULL. The other sub-frame bushing is not available (the smaller one) I'm not actually enlarging the hole.. I started with a 95A polyurethane rod that I cut into 3 pieces (I got 3 tries at getting 2 correctly centered bushings, even with the correct method it can be hard to get TRUE center). I tried using some cutting oil to keep the heat down but it kept getting shot back out, I used a spade bit as opposed to a drill bit for better accuracy, it cut the poly like butter.

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Originally Posted by Gearheadvr4

Looks like you built your own polys! Why did you go that way instead of off the shelf parts? Cost? If yes then could you let me know how and what the cost difference was? I'd really love to replace my entire suspension bushing setup.

Oh and what powder coat system are you using?


Nice work!

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If you look on 3sx's website you'll find that they only have one variety of poly bushing left for FWD cars. When everything was available there were 3 kits that were needed totalling $1200... this is absolutely RIDICULOUS pricing..

The diff bushings were made by buying the correct size universal bushing from energy suspension. (They only sell flange bushings as universals).. I used a hot knife to cut around the flange and keep the diameter and also to melt the poly to maintain the roundness where I'd cut (I should have taken pictures of this, but I was doing 1000 things at once). The sleeves that come with these bushings are made for an M14 bolt as opposed to the stock M12x70 bolts. The upper control arm bolts are M14x75 and are still available from Mitsu (anytime I can use OEM, I do) so I bought the bolts and cut 5mm off the end. I also used a step bit to bring out the bolt holes on the subframe.

The differential bushings cost me $37.98 for all 4 (not bad considering new OEM ones cost $10.x each) The poly rod was $20shipped, the 2 OEM subframe bushings that were available cost me $10, and I spent $33 on polyurethane

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Originally Posted by Gearheadvr4

Poured poly? Care to elaborate? I didn't know you could mix your own.

I'd much rather go that route than the window stuff. The poly I think would hold up best.

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Mcmaster-Carr is what I used, specifically part #8644K18


I won't be worrying about the rod end in the trailing arm at all as having the AWS delete, imo makes it practically irrelevant


Edit: I use the WAI powdercoat gun
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/XYZ-01-07100/
I use powders from Eastwood.

Also, just to clarify

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Originally Posted by Rakuny

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For these control arms I used the MOOG ball joints that someone found to work in a thread on 3si and then I bought new bushings from Mitsu at $15 a piece (it beats $100 per arm and they are coated instead of painted) I didn't worry about replacing those bushings with poly because their is not much rubber on them and it is solid all the way around

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Originally Posted by Gearheadvr4

Poured poly? Care to elaborate? I didn't know you could mix your own.

I'd much rather go that route than the window stuff. The poly I think would hold up best.

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FYI

How to Make Your Own Poly Urethane Motor Mount

So if you could guess how much would it cost to go the DIY route and replace all the suspension bushings?

95A? That's basically solid. A bowling ball is 100 on the hardness scale. No give at all?