Poly bush on Avant upper wishbone - Stuck :(

[Ross]

So today my new wishbones turned up as well as the bushes... I'm now confused as hell.

I have two sets of upper-inner power flex bushes (cast and pressed), and my new cast wishbones turned up. I've fitted one cast bush and it really doesn't look right - see the first two attachments.

The bush is pressed almost completely in, yet the bolt sits pretty much inside the wishbone as the bush is about 10mm thinner than the hole. It would result in a nice tight fit on the strut, but way too much thread left on the bolt.

In fact the only thing that seems like it would fit was the cast bushes (see pic 3). I'm completely stuck now so any help appreciated

Anyone have experience of fitting the cast upper wishbone bushes or even better have pics

[irishs2]

Mine are pressed but should roughly look the same.

Are you sure its not the cast outer you are trying to fit?

[Ross]

Everything is so clean! Those struts look awesome... mine still have the rustic look

That's what I expected it to look like! The cast bushes have instructions indicating they are single piece bushes and should be installed with the ridge to the inside:

Fitting Instructions - PFR3-212 (cast)

[irishs2]

They started out like this






Judging from this pic you seem to have them on correctly but just tightened too tight?

http://www.s2forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=31161&page=2

Here the pressed bushes were modified to fit the cast.

http://www.s2forum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=343089&postcount=44

[Ross]

Thanks Eric! Most impressive before/after ever

I noticed Anders needed to get a longer bolt.. a bit of digging finds this on the 93 S2 avant:

17 N 10219401
hexagonal head bolt / F >> 8C-P-250 000*
M12X1,5X180 /

(17) N 10265501
hexagonal head bolt / F 8C-P-250 001>>*
M12X1,5X212 /

Pic of my cast wishbones attached with the 212mm bolt. So it looks like I need to order up a pair of the 180mm bolts to retrofit the cast wishbones!

Also noted the lower wishbones are slightly different between the S2 and RS2... there is a hole drilled for the handbrake cable bracket on the RS2. I'm hoping that's the only difference as that is pretty easy to drill out...

[Ross]

It's been an utter pain the ***** getting the cast wishbone fitted to the strut! After pressing in the power flex bushes the washers just wouldn't fit. After an hour of trying I managed to get it part way on and hammer it until I could get the bolt through... getting it centred was a mission too!

[irishs2]

Wow, if anthing I though cast would be easier. Looking good now though, although they still have a weird look even when fitted correctly.

[Veg]

keep going Ross, as I need to do this soon and want to see how yours turn out!

[Ross]

Wow it's been a while... had to look up this thread to get part numbers!

N 10219401 is NLA as of 18 months ago

I'm going to have to cut down the longer bolt to size.

[Christophski]

Audi still sell the bolt i think Ross before you start cutting...

[recurveandy]

I may have a pair of these bolts
I was sorting through some parts and couldn't think what they were for but this seems to have jogged my memory from when I had my avant some years ago

[Lago Blue]

Ross,

Years ago, I re-installed my original forged uppers w/poly inner bushes (a different brand than yours) and note the following in relation to the above:

a.} My bushings where each long enough that just one filled the entire length of one of the arm's inner mount bores when installed as you have, in fact they protruded slightly beyond the outer ends of the bores;

b.) Everyone else's install above appears to show pairs of shorter bushings installed from both sides of each inner mount bore, such that the bearing surface extends out beyond the length of each arms bushing mount bores;

c.) By contrast, yours do not even seem to fill the bores. Is there something missing from your kit? I did see your kit's instructions, does the other kit (or a combo of the two} fit "better"?

I point this out simply because in the case of mine and Anders red ones above, their arrangement (IMHO) gives them 3 advantages over yours as shown above:

i. each bushing's rotating contact area is as wide (or long) as possible, perhaps 2X yours;
ii. each arm's two bushings are as wide apart as possible making full use of the arm's total inboard width where yours must take the same forces from a much narrower stance; &
iii. by filling the bores with bushing, less debris is able to accumulate, the bushings working surfaces are further shielded and therefore the sliding surfaces will be less likely washed of grease and contaminated with grit.

Anyhow, I think what you may need is longer poly bushings and metal cores, perhaps then your bolt length will be fine.

Hope this helps,
LB

[andy j]

I fitted some rear upper arm bushes to mine recently and had the same problems your having. I soaked mine for a few days with penetrating fluid and i still struggled to shift them. I ended up going to a local hardware store and getting some new hardened bolts that were the correct size.

http://www.s2forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=74939&page=2

[Ross]

Wow, where does the time go. I can't believe I gave up for 12 months and came back to this, only to give up for another 18 months before coming back to it again

I missed LB's post. That sums up where I'm at. I had some fun getting all my parts out in the garage and decided that there's no way I'm putting the "correct" Powerflex bushes on the car. I will get some pics, but I'm pretty sure they are not incorrectly designed, despite what Powerflex might say. Why am I going to fit a bush that is only using about 2/3 of the bore in the wishbone, and when tightened takes alot of force to move the wishbone up and down on the strut (how firm should it be? I expect it to be rather stiff but i reckon it needs about 20kg of force to push it down.

Is anyone aware of any other poly bush brand? Failing that I will pursue modifying the kit I still have for the pressed bushes to fit, ala Anders set-up. I need to get the car on wheels in the coming weeks as it's moving to Sonic's place... I haven't given up on the car, but given up tackling it alone so it's going to be a joint project to get her up and running again this summer

[david1980]

superflex is better than powerflex from my experiences