[T3] Alignment

Jim Adney jadney at VWType3.org
Wed Dec 14 11:21:57 PST 2016


On 13 Dec 2016 at 19:04, Daniel Nohejl wrote:

> Okay, so I found my notes from 2013 and it looks like 4 NOS spring
> plate bushings were installed in the summer of that year. Does the
> fact that one of those is squeaking mean anything at all? My
> impression is that the OEM rubber ones aren´t supposed to squeak. Of
> course NOS does include the word "old" in it so perhaps they were past
> their prime. In any case, that does mean that the diagonal arm
> bushings are original. 

The spring plate bushings are intended to "squirm" internally. If 
they slip, either inside or outside, they will wear and fail. The 
squeak you're hearing could be from slipping, or it could be from 
metal to metal contact somewhere.

As Keith mentioned, the OE bushings are a real bear to install, 
because they are so tight. I suspect that the polyurethane 
replacements are made slightly smaller, so they will be easy to 
install, but that makes them likely to slip and wear, so I'm 
skeptical about their long term reliability.

In 45 years, the ONLY diagonal arm bushings I've ever replaced were 
on one side of a '71 squareback where someone had removed the pivot 
bolt and neglected to put it back. Left unconstrained for years, the 
bushings ran into something else and got distorted to the point where 
a replacement pivot bolt would not go in. I had to remove the old 
bushings and install new ones to restore the rear suspension 
geometry. The owner admitted that this quieted down the ride 
significantly, now that the diagonal arm was no longer banging around 
back there.

In other words, I doubt if there's any problem with your diagonal arm 
bushings, assuming the pivot bolt is in place.

-- 
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Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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