alright i got spohn lcas and their ajustable panhard bar with poly bushings greased them up. then had a shop grease them. they still squeek horribly. If i tightened them down to much would this make them squeek? does anyone else have this problem?

 

Yup, poly does that. Polygraphite is a little less quite, but both are hard as hell in my opinion.

 

Did you make sure the surface was clean before the install? Reason for the sqeeking is not because of the poly, it is beacuse there is dirt grinding on the metal.

Kat

 

mine dont squeak at all, i would try what kat said.

Justin

 

Were the bushings greaseable, with the zerk fittings?

 

yah they have grease zerts. and i have greased them like atleast 3 times! its driving me insane. If its the metal to metal rubbing will this go away over time or do i have to take them all apart and sand them down?

 

Did you tighten them with the car in the air and the suspension at full droop?

If so, that's why they are squeaking. With poly, you need to have the car on the wheels before you do your final tightening.

 

I agree grease them bitches.

 

I loosened them up while one the ground and retightend them. but they still squeek. How much am i suposta tighen them? im starting to think that kat is right even though i dont wanna believe it cuz it was a pain getting the bolt holes in posistion to begin with.

 

Did you loosen then retorque all the bolts while loaded? A prybar and a hammer make aligning stuff easy.

I don't remember the specs off hand, something like 70~85 ft-lbs.

 

No problems here. As a side note, my poly a-arm bushing instructions recommended retightening after 50 miles.

JamesC

 

You didn't say, but are you using synthetic grease? You have to you know. Regular grease is bad for the poly. I use Mobil 1 synthetic for all of my suspension parts.

 

yah im using synthetic greese i think they must just need to be sanded down they rnt bad going down the road. just when i come off my drive way or get in the car something that makes the car jerk a little

 

Mine squeak badly too. So i bought from TDS the greaseable poly-graphite bushings. Also ordered a tube of synthetic grease from spohn to make sure I have no more creaking/squeaking. Its real annoying.

 

huh.... so why is conventional grease bad for poly bushings?

 

I use the marine grease on mine.

 

They poly supposedly will break down much faster if normal grease is used on them. Something to do with the chemical compositions? as per what my mechanic said

 

That’s my point… as far as I can tell there is no hard proof behind this besides “such and such said so”

FWIW, polyurethane is very resistant to most chemicals, including most greases, that is actually one of ES’s and Prothane’s selling points, that leaking trannys and engines will not cause their stuff to rot and fall apart. Originally, when people started using them the recommendation was to only use silicon based grease, which is basically a hold over from rubber, where silicon is the only lube that will not cause it to break down. Now that there are some “expensive” and in some cases hard to buy at the corner store synthetic greases suddenly people are recommending synthetics.

As far as I can tell the stuff that ES uses is just some sort of marine or trailer grease without a dye (something that does not wash away easily since originally none of their stuff had a way of re greasing once you assembled it), and I don’t know of any reason why normal chassis grease would cause them to break down any faster then normal

Has anyone seen one of those ES tie rod boots break down when in contact with chassis grease? I know there aren’t any warnings about it on their packages.

 

Basically, the only reason why I know that is because in another thread, SteveSpohn said himself that synthetic grease was what the manufacturers reccomended to use. Now whether or not its completely necessary, thats another story. But I'm not taking any chances, would you? But who knows, you might be right.


Plus for $14 you can get a tube from Spohn which will last many an oil change.

 

and to think you can get that same tube of grease here for 7 bucks...

http://www.wttool.com/p/6704-0020

 

Well look at that.
Too bad saving 7 dollars doesn't excite me like it does for other people.

 

it wasnt saving the 7 dollars that excited me; it was getting twice the product at a price i would have otherwise spent anyhow

 

For that matter, they carry the stuff in grease gun tubes at the local Ace hardware stores as well as any decent bike shop (they use them when rebuilding/changing springs on bike shocks) for MUCH less then that price.

That’s still not really the point… I’m not sure that I’m ready to start using that stuff or any clear grease in the place of my chassis grease and I still don’t see a good reason why not to just use plain old chassis grease on my poly bushings.

 

The guys at Prothane says that convetional grease breaks down the poly over time.

Kat

 

As per ES’s catalog: “do not deteriorate from exposure to oils, lubricants, under car and under hood chemicals…”

As per ES’s tech support: “Nothing that I know of breaks them down chemically, we use the same basic polyurethane compound for the tie rod boots, designed for holding chassis grease in, that we do for the bushings.”

As per ES’s R&D department (got forwarded there from tech when I asked for details): “I can’t really name a chemical that would cause them to break down.”

The only real reason to use synthetic that I got from anyone (2 suspension parts manufacturer’s in addition to ES) is “we recommend synthetic grease because it tends to be more water resistant and most bushings are difficult to lube.”

For that matter, ES wouldn’t tell me what was in their grease, but hinted that it was a conventional with Teflon added (superlube is a synthetic with Teflon added) and mentioned that most synthetic greases will have the same additives that the same grade conventional will have so it’s not an additive thing.

Since my chassis grease gun is loaded with some “blend,” green chassis grease with teflon, can you guess what I’m going to be using from now on?

 

There are some solvents that break down poly, but none of it is in petroleum grease that I know of. Ketones and alcohols can break down polyurethane, but none of those things are in grease or oil.

 

being as I have a tube of synthetic already, I might as well use it, but once it runs out, I wont think twice about using normal chassis grease

What about poly-graphite? TDS recommends that you can use either the petroleum based stuff or synthetic on the poly-graphite. Guess it makes no difference then?

 

I use Mobil 1 Synthetic on everything. Haven't had a problem yet even on the poly graphite in th front of the RS.

Kat