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Strut rod bushings: Thickness affecting caster?

Tighten the rods, you'll be surprised how the rubber bushings compress. I used adjustable rods from PST, anyway.
 
When I rebuilt the 68 I used PST Poly everywhere, front,rear,upper and lowers. Yes the strut bushings were thicker. Took it to my alignment guy and told him to get as much positive caster he could. He called back and said I can get 3.5 degrees. Told him to settle on 2 and call it good. With manual steering it tracks like its on rails but is a bitch in parking lots ect. When I get my PSsetup done it will be even more fun to drive. Put it together and take it for an alignment, you might be pleasently suprised.
 
Original bushings are rubber and no one yet has asked the supplier why the new rubber bushings were changed? If the material make up was different, like going from rubber to poly I could see the need for different rods. It appears the poly suppliers are up front about that and supply a rod that works. One would epexpect that with component changes.
But going from rubber to rubber this sounds like a supplier problem that should be corrected on their end and not on ours at our expense. Unless being up front as to why theirs required a change in rod length and provide the acceptable rod.
To me they have screwed something up and are leaving the consumer to design the solution.
 
There have been problems with aftermarket parts since they first came out. Poor fitment, poor quality, etc. The only way a manufacturer gets motivated to improve is if we as consumers refuse to accept a bad product.
I had planned to help this guy yesterday but he didn't answer his phone when I tried. I decided to go home and work on my own things.
 
mopar 3 B said:
Original bushings are rubber and no one yet has asked the supplier why the new rubber bushings were changed? If the material make up was different, like going from rubber to poly I could see the need for different rods. It appears the poly suppliers are up front about that and supply a rod that works. One would epexpect that with component changes.
But going from rubber to rubber this sounds like a supplier problem that should be corrected on their end and not on ours at our expense. Unless being up front as to why theirs required a change in rod length and provide the acceptable rod.
To me they have screwed something up and are leaving the consumer to design the solution.
Click to expand...
Your right, and it down right sucks that the consumer is caught holding the bag and left to defend for themselves! I guess that's standard business practice these days?
Kern Dog said:
There have been problems with aftermarket parts since they first came out. Poor fitment, poor quality, etc. The only way a manufacturer gets motivated to improve is if we as consumers refuse to accept a bad product.
Click to expand...
How do we refuse a product when we don't know if it will work? Then they say, sorry, screw you! See my other reply here. Still, Good Luck​
 
69L48Z27 said:
^^^ what he said @steve340

There is a crush sleeve in there. If you run the nut down tight and it's against the sleeve the installed 'hieght' is the same. If the bushing is too big it will squeeze out a little more than the originals.
Click to expand...

Turns out...YOU are right!
I did a mock up today before moving forward. One rod had the old bushings, the other had the new ones cranked down. Both had the same amount of threads remaining outside of the nut.
Score!
 
Kern Dog said:
Turns out...YOU are right!
I did a mock up today before moving forward. One rod had the old bushings, the other had the new ones cranked down. Both had the same amount of threads remaining outside of the nut.
Score!
Click to expand...
Nice! Glad to see you got it back together.
 
Kern Dog said:
Turns out...YOU are right!
I did a mock up today before moving forward. One rod had the old bushings, the other had the new ones cranked down. Both had the same amount of threads remaining outside of the nut.
Score!
Click to expand...

Do you know the brand or outfit that they were ordered from?
 
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