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Making suspension bushes
londonsean69 - 28/11/08 at 09:38 AM

Anybody made their own suspension bushes?

Not the sleeves for them on the end of the wishbone, but the top hat bushing.

If so, what material did you make them from?
Nylon, PTFE, Oilon, Tufnol??

It will be for the haynes roadster design.

I know it is possible to get them from 3ge, but I would like to make as much of the stuff as possible myself, to this end I have ordered a small lathe

I can get hold of polyurethane from polybush, but it's damn pricey.

Cheers

Sean


andylancaster3000 - 28/11/08 at 09:59 AM

We machined our bushes for the wishbones from some material bought from RS. I'm not sure what exactly it is, I'll have to ask the person who decided upon it and bought it and let you know.

With regard to poly bush material, I wouldn't bother trying to make your own, its a real a*re of a job. We spent ages trying to do it, spent most of the time making the tooling and ended up throwing most of it in the bin. If you have a live axle/dedion that needs them for the trailing arms I'd be inclined to by some pre-formed ones!

[Edited on 28/11/08 by andylancaster3000]


iank - 28/11/08 at 10:25 AM

Some people have claimed success with machining poly bush material when freezing it first, at room temp it doesn't machine very well at all.

Normally polybushes are cast, which can be done at home if you can make the moulds - Alan B has done this.
See http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/viewthread.php?tid=63786


londonsean69 - 28/11/08 at 10:37 AM

quote:
Originally posted by iank
Some people have claimed success with machining poly bush material when freezing it first, at room temp it doesn't machine very well at all.


I have been told this as well. It works for a lot of plastics, and depends on the hardness (shore rating). The harder materials can usually be machined at room temp, anything softer than about 80 shore (roughly) needs freezing first.

I'll have a trawl through RS

Thanks

Sean


mad-butcher - 28/11/08 at 11:30 AM

info


mad-butcher - 28/11/08 at 11:31 AM

more info


big_wasa - 28/11/08 at 05:04 PM

I could not for the life of me get the poly material to machine. Even when frozen for a weak.