In a message dated 2/21/00 11:20:10 PM EST, HD50EL@aol.com writes:
> Jeff, the most likely culprit is the nylon bushings in the lower trunnion.
> These tend to wear out within 50k, so this is what I would check first. My
> Spitfire has 48k original miles on it, and the trunnion bushings had
> excessive play in them, so I replaced them.
While we're on the subject of trunnion bushings, may I offer some personal
observations? Regularly we have a post from some lister who has a siezed
through bolt and the BTDT advice is to cut it out and use anti-sieze compound
on reassembly. I believe that the cause of the siezed bolt is as follows: as
the trunnion bushes begin to wear, some play develops. This means that
every bump you hit "crashes" the suspension onto the sleeve
surrounding the through bolt. Small wonder that they meld together.
My solution is to change the bushings regularly. But what you may not be
aware of is that rather than buying the whole $50 trunnion bushing kit, the
bushes are available individually and they are CHEAP! TRF lists them for
$.50 each. So I swap out the bushings alone every 15,000 or so miles and
then do a proper rebuild with a complete kit at say 50,000 mile intervals.
My .02. YMMV.
Greg Rowe
78 Spitfire
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