LCA bushing Poly or Rubber?

[Vmanmopar]

Hi all,
I'm a new guy here and this is my first posting. I have been a Mopar guy all my life but believe it or not this is really the first A-body that I had to do these on. The last set I did was on my Road Runner 25 years ago (still have the car too)
Ok so here is my question things have changed and materials have improved and gotten better so when I did my LCA bushing I used the Moog rubber ones because I was told the poly's would wear out and squeak like crazy. So today I have ordered the energy suspension poly bushing kit but was going to use the Moog rubber bushing for the LCA. I do want to up grade to these bushing but now I'm wondering if I use the poly bushings my life will be much easier (ill not have to chile out the old sleeve) but now i'm told they could creep out. Does anyone have any experience with this.
The Car is a 1 owner 1969 convertable Barracuda with a 318 that looks and acts like a 340.
It is used mostly as a weekend cruiser.

 

[mguner]

The solution it to make a preload device that fits under the torsion bar snap ring to keep the torsion bars and control arm constantly forward.

 

[mad accountant]

I started with poly, then replaced them with rubber once I saw how much fore-aft movement there was in the LCA. The poly are easier to install, but its relatively easy to remove the bushing shells and the sleeve from the pivot pin; lots of tips here to make the job even easier. Worth the time and effort in my opinion.

 

[Mopar Tim]

Rubber IMO

 

[72bluNblu]

Poly LCA bushings should be used with adjustable strut rods IMHO. The original strut rods are a "one size fits most" scenario. They were intended to work with rubber bushings that allowed more movement, and they only had to be close enough to get to the factory alignment specs. It's not uncommon to find some binding at the LCA as the suspension travels in its range caused by the stock strut rods even with everything set up per the factory.

The poly bushings work great IF they're installed properly. They MUST fit tightly into the old inner shells. But they don't always fit tightly because of the tolerances on the inner shells and the poly bushings. Adjustable strut rods allow for the LCA to be drawn up tightly against the poly bushings to keep them from moving fore/aft. This is true for the originals too, BTW, the rubber bonded to the inner shell is not supposed to keep the LCA from moving fore/aft, that's why there's strut rods to begin with. I also use greaseable LCA pins with poly bushings so grease can be added if they start to squeak, although I haven't had any issues with mine squeaking so far and I have thousands of miles on mine.

 

[RustyRatRod]

I like rubber in the LCA and poly elsewhere. The reason is because the brunt of the load is on the LCAs, so this means most of the road vibration is transmitted through the LCAs. Poly bushings are great, but they are hard and transmit a lot of road vibration. Some people don't mind it, but I never liked it.