Elephant Racing - Spring Plate Bushing Install

[Slate_Grey]

I have the ER spring plate bushings installed on the spring plate and torsion covers, cleaned the cups on the body, lubed both the bushings and the cups with dish soap per the instructions, but cannot for the life of me get these past the initial "chamfer" on the bushing. It's just way too tight. I can't get it on far enough to slip the cover over to be able to torque down with the ER provided longer bolts. Anyway have any suggestions or experience? These are going on an 89 3.2...


I sanded off the old residual bushing and cleaned the cup:




I can't get the bushing installed past this mark:

[kyngfish]

New bushings and spring plates usually come with 2 longer bolts. Lube with dish soap. Get the spring plate on the torsion bar you should be able to pull the torsion bar out slightly while still having it on the splines at the center of the car and the splines in the spring plate at the same time while the bushing isn’t “in”.

Put the longer bolts on diagonal corners and tighten - alternating between bolts until it starts pulling the bushing inward. Check to when you can put the standard bolts in the remaining corners of the cover then just bolt it in until the longer bolts bottom out.

Then remove long bolts and put your standard bolts in and tighten all four corners gradually until it sits flush to the three bolt stems in your picture. Torque to spec.

If your kit didn’t come with the long bolts take your standard ones to Home Depot and get some longer ones in the right thread size.

If you have to index your torsion bars you may have to do this a few times. If you have the budget invest in an air or chord less ratchet. Makes the job easy peasy. Impact sockets don’t fit on the bolts. I used my standard 3/8 snap on sockets and the walls are just thin enough to fit between the bolt and spring plate cover walls.

[Slate_Grey]

I did get the longer bolts with the kit. Unless I'm missing a piece of the puzzle (which could very well be the case), I can't get the cover on (to be able to use the longer bolts) until the spring plate is pushed in at least an inch or so... It won't pass through the torsion bar access hole in the body. So until the spring plate is further on from what I can tell, I can't get the cover on?

[Lyle O]

There is enough variation between where the bushing sits (including the little lip there) and the bushing diameter that you have a super tight fit. Nothing too out of the ordinary. Just go to your local hardware store and buy some EVEN LONGER bolts, lube the bushing really well with SILICONE, and you will get those in, following the procedure Kyngfish outlines above. You may even have to sand the rubber a little at the front; no big deal. Just be carful not to bend the cover if the force is too high; go slowly and use lots of silicone, or even Teflon gel.

There was another thread recently where someone else had this problem. I suspect the mold producing the bushings has worn to where all the parts coming out now are oversized. But that is just speculation on my part.

[BER]

I had similar issues installing new Neatrix bushings several years ago. First, like you I got longer bolts to pull the torsion bar cover into position. The big difference for me was losing the dishwash soap and using a good silicone lube. I used Dow Corning 112. Big difference! The silicone grease was the key for me.

[Slate_Grey]

But my issue is that I can’t even get the cover on to be able to use bolts... I may post a pic back later, but the body only allows the spring plate through (when pointing down) - the cover won’t fit until the spring plate is inserted at least an inch... unless as I said I’m being dense and missing something obvious (which seems to be happening more and more these days).

[pete3799]

Can you slide the cover onto the spring plate first and then put the whole thing up in?

[BER]

Is it me or does Slate_Grey’s outer bushing (see picture) look fatter than the inner bushing? If you hold them together, are they exactly the same size?

Stupid question - is there an inner and outer bushing, or are all four bushings supposed to be uniform in size?

[Slate_Grey]

Call off the hounds. Total amateur hour mistake on my behalf. The cover *can* go on when initially putting the spring plate on. It just required a slight and very deft persuasion of the body work to get it squeezed in. After that I was able to push the cover onto the spring plate enough to use the provided long bolts, and then between the long bolts and gradually tightening down the final “short” bolts everything found their appropriate resting points.

The bushings are identical (at least for the 89 cars).

Apologies for the thread (maybe someone else with skills at my level these days sigh may benefit from this post at least). Thanks to all that chimed in!