Hey guys.
I'm in the throws of rebushing my leaves. No-one lists a bush to replace the ones in the top of the front spring hangers. I could utilise two sets of rear shackle top bushes, but they are friggin expensive!
At any rate, as best as I can tell having the top of the hanger able move at all, can't be any help to launching straight. As it is (With all the old bushes in there) when it breaks out, the ass end dances all over the place.
I intend to replace these bushes with brass ones. I'll turn some up one the lathe. I'll make the heads of the bushes thin enough that there is preload crush on the front spring eye bushes.
Aside from perhaps a slight decrease in ride comfort, (No loss!) can anyone see anything I'm not? Apart from ride quality,why would they have put bushes here

I did what you mentioned first and used 2 sets or rear upper bushes. The nolothane ones are near on impossible to put in!

In the old nissan race suspension manual for the 1200 they say to replace the upper bushes with aluminium ones so I don't see why brass would be a problem, Although you may as well make yours out of ally too cause it would be cheaper.

My "sponser" can supply materials no problem.

If mr nissan says it's ok, then it must be!

Ive got alloy shackle to chassis bushes, the front leaf eye bushes are nolathane while the rear eye bushes are new nissan items.

When I get the chance I intend to bore the spare urethane chassis/shackle bushes that I have for my 1200. The pin size is, from memory, 13mm while the hole in the bush is 11mm [to match the shackle pin] The combined length of two of these shackle bushes is less than required to allow them to touch in the middle, so I thought I would bore a couple of extras & machine off a small filler piece to take up the gap in the middle.

If I made it just a whisker too wide it would snug up nice & tight, still providing a measure of shock absorption, but without any slop or play like many rubber ones have.

The wagon does not use this design with the rear spring's front mount welded direct to the chassis, so metal bushes will work too, just make them a good snug fit over the pins to avoid unpleasant metallic noises.

Baaaa

Quote:

is that coz the nolathane's for the rear are too small?

The 1200 competition manual says to use new stock bushes for the rear eyes and for the front not to use nylon bushes but get bushes made from Delrin or Delrin AF.

I was quoted $130 for four plastic bushings for the front eyes so I used noltec ones for $28, and bought the rear eye bushes from ebay last year for $10.

As for the shackle bushes the comp manual says to use steel or aluminium.

You can only imagine how much the rear would come out of alignment on hard cornering with stock shackle bushes.

Delrins a fantastic material.
Ive used it in some of my silversmithing projects

Its cheap compared to those bush prices (think I paid 80 bucks for a meter x 60mm dia.- enough to make quite a few bushes methinks...maybe even less for smaller diameters)

lathes like a dream too!

I think I should invest in a lathe and start making bushes for a living.

You read my mind !?