Symptoms: when car is raised, after adjusting ride height (wheels on the ground) the car sticks up about an inch or so higher than where it was set. Drive around a bit and it settles down to the adjusted position.
This is 100% normal. As you raise the car the suspension extends until it's sitting on the bump stops. When you lower it down, the suspension is on the bump stops when the tires hit the ground. Because of camber and toe changes at full suspension extension, the wheels are not in the same position as when it's at ride height. But, the friction from the tires tries to keep the wheels in the same place. So, until the car rolls the suspension will not fully settle.
So my first question is how does one tighten the pivot to 100’lbs if there is zero resistance inside this bushing?
There's a few ways to tackle this. One is to just use an impact, sometimes that's enough to get the lock washer to grab before things start spinning. But if you're using a factory lock nut or even a Nylock the nut itself may have too much resistance and you'll have to grab onto the shoulder of the pivot pin with a set of channel locks to overcome the friction in the nut.
On that note, you can just use a standard nut on those pivots, with a nice new lock washer, because at 100 ft/lbs it's not coming loose.
The other thing is, because there's no rubber bushing you don't have to tighten the pivot nut at ride height. The poly and Delrin bushing slip on the pivot, so, you can install the pivot by itself into the K frame, use some channel locks to grab the shoulder of the pin (not where the bushing rides!!!) and torque the nut to 100 ft/lbs. Then you can just slide the LCA onto the pivot.
View attachment 1716394397
Does that not look like the inner shell of the old bushing? Does that look correct?
That's the inner shell, and that is 100% correct for most poly bushings if you're reusing the factory pins. There are aftermarket pins for poly bushings that don't have the machined step for the inner shell, they're the same diameter all the way down the pin. Some of those are greaseable, some are not. Either way, with factory pins and most poly bushings you need both the inner and outer shells.
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I can push the pivot into position with a hand??!
Normal. With the poly bushing the fit between the bushing, pivot and LCA should be a tight slip fit. They should assemble by hand, but not have any end play. Poly and Delrin bushings do not work anything like the original rubber bushings, the bushing rotates on the pivot. Which is why they need to be greased.
As far as my symptoms go, I feel like the LCA is just slopping around in there and binding.
What do ya’ll think?
Unless there's a ton of end play on the pivots nothing is slopping around. And again, the symptoms you describe with the suspension not fully settling without rolling the car are
100% normal.
I sent BAC an email earlier yesterday with a few questions. This guy Peter Bergman writes me back!! The website seems to suggest that they are going racing this weekend too; so pretty busy and still took the time!!!
Add that to all of ya’lls endorsements-
They are on the way!! I gotta get cracking on getting the other one out and cleaning them up!
Peter is great, and the Delrin bushings are great. But they won't change a thing with regard to how the suspension needs the wheels to roll to fully settle.
And they may not change anything with the issue of the pivot spinning in the bushing either. The Delrin bushing works exactly the same way as the poly bushings do, although they do not require the outer shell to be re-used and the material is harder. They still need the inner shell or aftermarket pivots. They should still be a tight slip fit on the pivot, so hand assembly is not unusual. Because the material is harder the fit between the pivot and the bushing is even more important, if there's any play between the bushing and pivot you need better fitting pivots.
When I installed the Delrin bushings in my Duster I measured half a dozen different pivot pins- factory ones with inner shells, and a couple different aftermarket pivots designed for poly/delrin bushings. The factory pivots and inner shells have a fairly wide tolerance because the bushing manufacturers never really had to hold the outer diameter of the inner shell with any real exacting spec. And even the aftermarket pivots have some variation to them.
