Strut Rod Bushings poly vs rubber
A few things-
That video shows 6 minutes of easy driving on good roads. While it's somewhat useful to see how the suspension moves about in general, it is not at all indicative of all the loads the suspension can see. It's a basically a cruise around the block, there's no hard cornering, there's no hard braking, there's no big potholes, etc. So, don't base your suspension decisions on that video.
If a poly LCA bushing "falls out" of the socket, it was an installation problem (a really bad one at that). If the LCA slides back and forth on the LCA pin with a poly LCA bushing, it's an installation problem. Period. I've run poly LCA bushings for tens of thousands of miles on multiple cars, if installed properly they work great. I always use them with greaseable LCA pins and adjustable strut rods, and I have never had an issue with them.
You will not "beat out" the K frame where the strut rod attaches by using adjustable strut rods. The whole point of adjustable strut rods is that they DON'T move fore/aft. At all. The heim translates all of that motion, the solid "bushings" just locate the strut rod. The only reason they look like metal "bushings" is because they use the same mount on the K frame. Basically, they're just an adaptor to mount the heim for the adjustable strut rod.
I have the QA1 style adjustable strut rods on my Challenger (actually made by CAP, the design was bought by QA1, that's how old they are). Other than the 1.12" FFI torsion bars, they are the only suspension part that has been on my Challenger the entire 9 years I've had the car and done all ~70k miles I've put on it. Oh, and they're aluminum. Aluminum pillow blocks, aluminum mount for the heim, hollow threaded aluminum strut rod shafts. The only steel is the heims, bolts, and threaded end. I've changed tubular UCA's, I've wiped out a set of heims in the Hotchkis UCA's I swapped over to, I broke a weld on the CAP built tubular LCA's I had on the car, I replaced the shocks, swapped out spindles, even replaced parts of the 11.75" brake set up I installed brand new myself when I got the car due to wear, those strut rods are still perfect.
A few things-
That video shows 6 minutes of easy driving on good roads. While it's somewhat useful to see how the suspension moves about in general, it is not at all indicative of all the loads the suspension can see. It's a basically a cruise around the block, there's no hard cornering, there's no hard braking, there's no big potholes, etc. So, don't base your suspension decisions on that video.
If a poly LCA bushing "falls out" of the socket, it was an installation problem (a really bad one at that). If the LCA slides back and forth on the LCA pin with a poly LCA bushing, it's an installation problem. Period. I've run poly LCA bushings for tens of thousands of miles on multiple cars, if installed properly they work great. I always use them with greaseable LCA pins and adjustable strut rods, and I have never had an issue with them.
You will not "beat out" the K frame where the strut rod attaches by using adjustable strut rods. The whole point of adjustable strut rods is that they DON'T move fore/aft. At all. The heim translates all of that motion, the solid "bushings" just locate the strut rod. The only reason they look like metal "bushings" is because they use the same mount on the K frame. Basically, they're just an adaptor to mount the heim for the adjustable strut rod.
I have the QA1 style adjustable strut rods on my Challenger (actually made by CAP, the design was bought by QA1, that's how old they are). Other than the 1.12" FFI torsion bars, they are the only suspension part that has been on my Challenger the entire 9 years I've had the car and done all ~70k miles I've put on it. Oh, and they're aluminum. Aluminum pillow blocks, aluminum mount for the heim, hollow threaded aluminum strut rod shafts. The only steel is the heims, bolts, and threaded end. I've changed tubular UCA's, I've wiped out a set of heims in the Hotchkis UCA's I swapped over to, I broke a weld on the CAP built tubular LCA's I had on the car, I replaced the shocks, swapped out spindles, even replaced parts of the 11.75" brake set up I installed brand new myself when I got the car due to wear, those strut rods are still perfect.
