Having a hard time putting neatrix in.
 

I am in the final assembly of the rear suspension. New Elephant rear monoballs, new bearing, painted the banana arms and miscellaneous stuff. Tried to put the neatrix bushing into the t bar opening, using silicon grease. It was a very tight fit. Tried to pound it in with rubber mallet, no go either. Right now, I have the spring plate with neatrix in the refrigerator, not in the icebox. Hopefully, it will shrink a little bit.

Any other suggestion. Neatrix doesn't need to be lathed?

Thanks,
John

Others may ( should ! ) chime in..but I understand you may have to "pull" the plate-in by using longer-than-stock bolts to get started. Then switch to stock bolts once you made some initial progress.
---Wil Ferch

I put mine in at room temperature. I used tons of spray silicone.

What I found was that the hole in the chassis is slightly oval and the bushing needs to ovalize to get in there. I took a bunch of fumbling and perhaps 10-15 minutes per side but I got them in.

I cleaned up the hole really well and it seemed to help.

It will be interesting to get you post refrigerator feedback. I think they should be soft and mushy so they conform and go in.

As hard as Neatrix are to install I have heard that poly are much harder to get in.

Not sure what the Elelphant set up is like to install. That's probably my next step when I recover from this years winter projects.

Did you prep the bodyside hole with a rotating sandpaper form? There is always a lot of old bushing left on it. It should be reasonably clear of that crap - use a small chisel if you need to.

Is the surface on which the inner neatrix-to-springplate sits nice and clean so it does not bulge the bushing out?

Typically the roughness of the bodyside hole holds the bushing while the bushing will rotate on the springplate. They tell you to glue it to the springplate to replicate the deformation of the original, vulcanized, setup. That doesn't work: the busing *will* rotate on the springplate, so you may want to try to put the bushing to the hole and then monkey in the springplate if that is possible.

John

jdub, not to hijack this thread but what about your need for 8 or 9 speed stuff? Tell me more. PM me if you are interesting.

Okay now back to our regularly scheduled thread.......

What Will said. Just use 4 longer bolts ( I use ones about 1" longer). Alternate tightening them down. When the cover is pulled down far enough you can switch the stock bolts. Not really a big deal.

Use the longer bolts. I also used a small wire wheel on my drill to clean up the hole. Went in no problemmo!

Jeff

Ditto, ditto.
But, I thought of that on my own! LOL I sat there beating on them then thought. Hmm. leverage. Which is what I usually resort to, since I'm only 135lbs! Hahahaha Just work each bolt in a little, then move to the opposite bolt. Then switch to the stocks. Don't forget the spacer on the bottome one.

I'll try to put them in tonite after they are cool in the refrig; if that doesn't work then the long bolt approach. I think I already cross thread one of the hole.

Thanks,
John

ok, plenty of lube - i used washing up liquid, then while it sounds harsh, i took a 5lb hammer to mine and gently tapped (using a blunt ended solid bar of around 1/2 inch thickness - actually an old socket extension bar) until they were in enough to get the threads started. those end plates are thick and wont be damaged. work around the plate and be careful to line up the bolt holes.

yeuporsch: not sure how much cooling the bushing may affect the installation process, and it may cause the opposite by making the rubber stiffer and a little more prone to splitting. Though it could be easier to push in because it's more solid(?)
When press-fitting bearings/races, the sides are heated and frozen because there is a metal ?/1000th interference which is reduced but rubber deforms so much more that it's apples and oranges.

Did this last month on the 78.....brings back nasty memories :)

I used the snot that came with my front poly bushings to lube them and then longer bolts to pull the Neatrix in. I went corner to corner, one turn at a time untill it was in.

I hope you do not have to re-index your bars. Then you have to pull the mothers out and after you squeezed them in......I had to, no fun!

I used the 'longer bolt' method on VWs more than 30 years ago ...

But, after getting some DIN 8.8 M10 threaded rod from MMC in 1980 ... I cut four studs to use for the cap installation on VWs or Porsches. Less stress on the threaded holes in the body!!! Made the Sway-A-Way installation a breeze ... should work great for Neatrix, too!

Ditto the longer bolt suggestions. Makes it easy.

Did this 3 weeks ago, crappy job. Clean both the arms and the housings on the car (I replaced the spring plate retainers as mine were rusting on the inner underside where the old bushings were worn), lots of lithium grease, put both of the bushings on the arm, worked out the angle of the spring plate using previous marks made before disassembly, used a vice to 'gently' fit the plates onto the bushing & arm, then used the longer bolt method to fit the arm to the car. Didn't cool the arms or the bushings and I live in FL.

I got lucky as I had a bump steer kit in a drawer - the bolts are the same size as those used on the spring plate, just longer. Once the plate is near enough to the car undo the longer bolts and refit the original bolts.

Then just hope you got the angles right. Did it much quicker the next day...

Good luck

you should be able to engage the torsion bar ok and so will be able to select the correct angle before bolting it up. assemble it all - bushes etc, lube, and push into position. check angle. then gently tap the whole lot into place. no need to mess about with long bolts etc.

heres how i did it

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=136886&highlight=dickst er

Warren:
I don't understand your reference to the threaded rod and how it is different to using longer bolts. Can you kindly elaborate?....I'm intrigued...but dense :)
---Wil Ferch

It sounds like Warren made a stud out of the threaded rod and then just attached a nut to the end and tightened down the spring plate. This would eliminate the "bolt is too short" problem when installing new bushings. I assume a little loctite is thrown on the stud to keep it secure, but it sounds like a good approach to the problem.
I'll be updating my suspension later this year, so I'll have to keep this trick in mind!

I used a process similar to Warren, the advantage is once you seat the long studs you are using nuts on the threaded rod to pull down versus using the threads in the body. Then once the plates are seated you pull out the threaded rods and put in the bolts, the threads in the body take less abuse as while they are under tension they are not also receiving shear forces on the thread surface wearing down the threads or causing galling or worse.

I understand this... I thought perhaps it helped to issue of being careful not to exert too much force because you could otherwise pull-out the threaded bosses ( Noah Polloks' warning).

I guess this could still happen using threaded rod.. ( but the threads would be in great shape because no screw threads were turning on them?).

---Wil