Cutting strut rod bushings for correct geometry?

I don't know if you guys realize that the strutrod bushing locates the control arm to center it on the pin bushing that the torsion bar goes into . The arm should be perfectly square to the pin. Cutitng the strut bushing to make the roll pin fit is a real idiotic way of doing this. They make poly bushings for both early and later struts. Where did you get the measurments telling you how much to cut the front and or rear. These bushings are made to locate the strut with the bushing squeezed to a specific amount guaged by the sleeve. Like I said I had the same problem and I called PST and they sent me the correct bushings. The early bushings do not take a sleeve. They are usually one piece. Moog makes two piece without the sleeve for early cars. One piece are easy to install if you have early bars.

I got this measurement from original bushings and 72 down strut rods. That's where the top picture I took on Matt Grubel site comes from. It compares factory and aftermarket bushings. You shorten the inner sleeve down the same amount as you do the rear poly bushing part. So the nut will clamp against the sleeve like the later style.

The idea is to just put it back in it's factory position.

Even though, the factory bushing doesn't always perfectly 100% position the lower control arm (LCA) on the pin. Also when the suspension travels up and down the strut rod has some arc to it moving the end of the LCA forward and back. The strut rod does not pivot on the same arc as the LCA. There's even some slop in the LCA shell to height adjuster connection.

The cutting the rear poly bushing deal worked 16 years and 80,000 miles for me and I got great alignment numbers. I ran rubber LCA bushing from 1994 to 1998 and when I took them out they were perfectly fine. I just removed my LCA's to put on the Hotchkis parts last year and the poly LCA bushing I ran from 1998 to 2010 looked fine and we even reused them even though I had new ones.

The one piece rubber early bushings aren't very good. Even in poly. And they tend to tear in the middle. They are mushy and allow the LCA to move back and forth high loads. That's why Moog sells and improver bushing two piece version part number K7040 for 63-72 A-bodies. We are just shortening the poly two piece bushing to match.