Hi Guys

Im looking to fit my back end back together. Just wondering what is better for the blocks (sleaves) on either side of the swing plate.

The red urethane sleaves or rubber ones.

Cheers

Newt

So much for putting this under tech talk - ooops.

sorted for you mate

probably urethane, but grease either really well

Make sure it's RUBBER GREASE, if you use grease.

Good OEM rubber unless big hp is my preference

lay rubber

Cheers guys.

Newt

its a hard one, OEM quality rubber is what I lean towards because its properly engineered to work.

I would jump on urethane if there was decent designed ones out there.

what we really need is higher duro OEM quality rubber bushes all round.


if you wanted to try poly bushes you can try these. Superpro. I have been using them for all my other cars for years and they are unkillable and designs are good and give "on rails" handling
I swear by them, leaves all other brands for dead in terms of performance, longevity and reliability. I have gone though others regularly but still of my first lot of sets of superpros even years later and some getting close to 200,000km of hard terrain use.

That said I have not tried them of my VWs as they currently don't offer inner trailing arm bushes. I have had problems when mixing poly with normal rubber before and thats why I haven't used their spring by plate bushes themselves yet.

Vlad

Interesting thought about not mixing and matching.

Im curious what happened when you used rubber inner trailing arms and urethane for the swing plate.

Iwas thinking about doing it the other way round.

Newt

I have red urethane spring plate bushings and I think they too hard. I am getting a knock in the suspension ,when checked,these bushes are starting to tear the nobs off. They don't have the natural movement of the rubber ones

Guys

Strange questoin, but who sells rubber inners?

Ta

Newt

I have round and both knobbys available, like most other good VW shops I'd reckon

$9 each

getting harder to get those now. cip1 has them and I assume VVDS would too since I find they stocked some of the odd parts no one else had.

The spring plate bushes can be found anywhere though.

now I have a question.

Can you get any of the rubber OEM bushes that are still made in Germany?

OEM rubber; got mine from VVDS. Rubber greased them and haven't had a squeak or problem

http://www.wolfsburgwest.com/cart/DetailsList.cfm?ID=311511246 

these look like the real deal. price also suggests they should be German ones.

http://www2.cip1.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=VWC-113-501-541-C 


I want to point out something. The OEM rubber from a performance point of view on a VW should be quite good as the ratio between pivot pin diameter and bushing rubber diameter is quite small where most other higher performing cars have tinny pivot pins in comparison to the rubber thus the load supporting capability of the VW's factory setup in theory should be really good in comparison to 95% other other cars.

question? if the spring plate is unbolted but the trailing arm still bolted at the inner bushes, how much can you distort and move it around in unnatural positions?

I know all other cars where I disconnected control arms and move them around on a single bush its like its connected by a piece of jelly.
In those cases the pins are tinny, typically 12-15mm diameter. The VW's inner bush pin is like 18-19mm? and not much rubber in between. The spring plate pivot is what? 45mm diameter? thats pretty big.

Ok Guys,

Going rubber.

I presume they still need lubricating at install.

Whats good?

Cheers

Newt

VW specify talc powder.

I only grease poly bushes with the grease provided. which now for superpro is silicone based grease. Was a lithium based grease?

Now, I'm not a suspension expert, but I think a lot of people here seem to be missing something. As far as my understanding goes, the rubber bushes are designed to grip, both to the inner and outer surfaces. This is why VW does not tell you to use grease, the talcum powder is only to stop them getting pinched as you tighten up the spring plate housing. The spring plate only moves through a fairly small angle, so the bushes can move through the range of motion by torsional twisting of the rubber. Because there's no slipping, they dont' squeak and don't wear out due to friction.

The urethane bushes are far too hard for this to work, so they have to slip, usually on the inner surface. This is why they require grease. All this moving also causes them to squeak, creak and then wear out much quicker than the rubber ones.

I got OEM type rubber ones for mine.

Thanks Vlad.

Waveman - I didnt see that line of thought coming - interesting - thanks.

Cheers

Newt

he is correct on the most part. I will add this though.

normally rubber bushes are bonded to the inner and outer shells (what shells? exactly!) so they twist as they rotate. For this to work best, there is also voids in the bush to make the twisting work better and also dampen vibration.


VWs have rubber bushes with no shells, no bonding, no shells, no voids so although they do grip and twist, they can only do so much and also slip to a certain degree with larger rotations. Talc is a dry lube to help with install AND lube for slippage which stops squeaking by stopping the rubber sticking to the metal.

The inner trailing arm bush is traditional bonded type bush as far as I can see. No talc on that one.

I've always used rubber grease on mine and never had a problem.
The bushings in mine now are the same ones I fitted 14 years ago and have travelled over 100k on these shitty roads.

I have to tweak my rear ride height soon and will probably replace them just due to the age but they were still perfect when I last adjusted it a few years ago.

Urethane bushings have there time and place like in the front of a Super they are vastly superior to stock rubber but I'd never use urethane in the rear again.
Did with one of my other Bugs and they were noisy, harsh ride and didn't last all that long before starting to crack apart.

Thats why I never fitted them either. too many VW design limitation in the rear for poly ones or anything half decent.

rubber is perfect for the application really.

grease is fine as long as its silicone or caster oil based specifically for rubber. petroleum based damage the rubber over time.

I use the PBR castor oil based stuff.
Wasn;t cheap but a tube has lasted me a while.

well look what we might have here.

http://superpro.com.au/superpro-parts/?view=part&id=SPF0633K&cid=9995...

could be the inner trailing arm bushes I been hoping these guys would make for more than a couple of years now.

Not much info other than its for the rear and suits t1, they haven't put any details yet as this only been listed recently.

Would love to see what there are like

ahh? could actually be a glitch in their catalog, PN corresponds to super front bush? some reason listed as rear end bush in the non super bug.