Front and rear bush recommendations

[catfood12]

Mates

I've been struggling to get the alignment consistent on my van. T6 lowered with adjustable VMaxx suspension.

The front lower arm bushes - specifically rear bushes (that's rear bushes on the front TCAs) seem to have voids anyway, but are split at the ends of the voids.



There's clearly a lot more lateral movement on the TCA than there should be. The van is a T28, not particularly harsh setup, only done 10K miles. I'm surprised these bushes have failed already.

I'm going to replace these with Powerflex poly bushes. Just seen that they make adjustable ones, allowing me to bring the camber back more to stock.

I've searched the forum - nothing. Has anyone been here before ?

 

[Pauly]

I don’t recall anyone posting about it before but you never know

 

[Northern Monkey]

I was chatting with @T6180 and pretty sure sure he was running adjustable bushes, may of been rear ones though.
11k seems very premature for them to fail.

 

[T6180]

I was chatting with @T6180 and pretty sure sure he was running adjustable bushes, may of been rear ones though.
11k seems very premature for them to fail.

That's right I'm running adjustable rear poly bushes

 

[catfood12]

That's right I'm running adjustable rear poly bushes

Why on the rears, just to get the toe in correct ?

I'm surprised no one has needed adjustable TCA bushes on the front. Lowering 40mm adds a few minutes of camber, from @Dellmassive's alignment thread, the O/S & N/S camber seems to be out on a number of vans, then exacerbated by lowering.

Mine's not helped by the mildly ridiculous 20X8.5 wheels on the front.

 

[Petehelmet]

From what I’ve read even the guys that run air only need to change the rears to adjustable bushes to correct the toe which is apparently the biggest issue regarding tyre wear and the fronts they just don’t bother.

 

[T6180]

Why on the rears, just to get the toe in correct ?

I'm surprised no one has needed adjustable TCA bushes on the front. Lowering 40mm adds a few minutes of camber, from @Dellmassive's alignment thread, the O/S & N/S camber seems to be out on a number of vans, then exacerbated by lowering.

Mines not helped by the mildly ridiculous 20X8.5 wheels on the front.

I only had the rear to adjust the camber angle to prevent the inner edge wear....I'm going for another alignment on the 17th May as I'm planning to lower the rear by 5mm before then

 

[catfood12]

Cheers chaps. Already ordered the adjustable bushes. Will stick them in this week and get it all tracked up. I was anticipating that I could get the rear alignment done just with the stock adjustment, that should give me enough fore/aft movement to sort the toe in/out.... shirley ?...

 

[zombie_T6]

I ended up raising my VMaxx extremes. I ended up wearing my tyres out in about 7k on the inner edges. Got new tyres and raised it before getting it tracked again. Good to know the bushes are available if I want to lower it back down again.

 

[catfood12]

I ended up raising my VMaxx extremes. I ended up wearing my tyres out in about 7k on the inner edges. Got new tyres and raised it before getting it tracked again. Good to know the bushes are available if I want to lower it back down again.

The VMaxx was on when I bought the van. The drop is around 40mm - similar to what most run on here. Was yours excessively low ?..

I'm troubled by these silly wheels - 8.5J on the front, bigger offset than stock wheels to clear the struts, so bigger scrub radius on the outside.

 

[catfood12]

So... this lot arrived today.




Apart from the cat. She's been here years.

Very nicely machined and finished. Special little C spanner for rotating the bushes. Looks like I could dial in about 3 degrees difference with these ! £100 each pair though...

Something for me to do over the weekend apart from everything else. I should be able to get the camber very close with a digital level in the garage...

 

[catfood12]

I had this done a couple of weeks ago. Nick in the centre has moments of brilliance, and is well thought of over on Pistonheads. I think he had an off day here though, as the rear's toe is showing the same as the fronts. Let alone the date being before I bought the thing...

 

[Fluff34567]

Will look on the wheels in motion forum. If it's still going, solid advice on there

 

[catfood12]

Adjustable bushes installed in the front TCAs over the weekend....

This is the rear TCA bush that controls caster, and the one that had the movement in. Odd that the voids are lateral and would allow lateral movement.



Not a lot wrong with the front TCA bush... but I'me here now..



They came out with ease, probably as only been in about a year....


Seen a lot worse...

 

[catfood12]

New bushes in....



Full adjustment for camber and caster.... eccentric hole at the bottom to raise the arm and maintain as much of the original angle as possible, as the things been lowered so much...

 

[catfood12]

"Low Quality Squad" home caster setting...

Zero the level;



OSF needs a tweak..





I am a redneck alignment master....... close enough...

 

[Deleted Member]

I’d get it booked in with @BognorMotors, it’s not too much of a trek and my van has been absolutely spot on since they did it.

Protyre in Poole did it prior to Bognor, they have a lovely Hunter machine, but it was still miles out.

 

[catfood12]

Went back to Soton alignment, with a bit of finessing, the front is now spot on. Camber adjustment is super sweet. Van did initially feel skittish, I guess as the contact patch was all new. Rears need to go out a bit. From @Dellmassive & @Insertcoin's posts, front and rear tow is the same. -10 to +30 arc minutes. On a 20" rim, 10" radius , that's 254mm. 254 * sin 0.33 (0.33 degrees = 20 minutes) = 1.46mm toe in.... Coolio, my front's now 1.1mm = .248 degrees =15 mins.




I'm all over in the van for the next couple of weeks, so will see what the wear pattern looks like at the end of the month. Get some new boots and schlep over to Bognors...

 

[Andym78]

Does anyone else have any issues with the standard wishbone bushes? I can see the front wheels vibrating as the brakes get to the biting point. its only a year old with 12k miles. VW garage says its normal. The front wishbone (rear bush) just doesn't seem strong enough. He showed me on one of the demo vans and it seemed to do the same.

 

[Westy78]

Just had mine MOTd and they mentioned the play in lower arm rear bushes. It’s done 28k so not very impressed but won’t bother trying a warranty claim as they’ll bounce it on the basis I have B14s fitted.