[TR] When to change rubber bushings

[Brian Jones]

Tony wrote:

It does constantly surprise me that we seem to have inferior "rubber"  
parts
these days.  Maybe even the OEM parts are not so great either.  Just  
yesterday
I was in the local Pep Boys and a guy was looking at some sort of  
rubber plug.
He was on a cell phone commenting to someone about how crappy the  
rubber was.
He said something like "These #$%^& parts made in India.  The rubber  
lasts a
few weeks"

This is because rubber isn't rubber anymore. Not genuine rubber- 
rubber anyway. The global demand for rubber far exceeds the number of  
rubber trees planted.
This manually collected crop cannot meet the demand of 6 billion people.

We're dealing with different synthetic formulations aimed to  
replicate, or rather, vaguely approximate real rubber.

I can imagine how much R&D went into the synthetic rubber used in the  
India plant for the low-cost Pep Boys parts referenced above. Zip.

Brian in Valley Forge
1963 TR4