I bought a whole new front steering setup for my car from pepboys, and the centerlink has these two foam, what seem to be, bushings or absorbers or something.
My question is....do these things stay on there or not?
I have been trying to hook everything up, but it seems the nut only goes so far down, just barely enough for one half a cotter pin.
Perhaps I need to place a jack under the back joint to raise it?

Thanks

 

Well it seems those bushings are supposed to stay there. My problem is, the idler arm to center link balljoint wont seat. The pitman arm to center link seated perfectly, but even now as I speak, the damn ball joint is stuck into the idler arm and I can't get it apart even. I might have to take the pickle fork to it...just hope I don't mess up that foam.

 

The foam has to be packing material, Throw it in the trash. There is no foam pieces in the suspension on a factory 3rd genm or a modified one either.

 

Rubber, I think, or some sort of synthetic material. They can be seen in the following link:

http://www.napaonline.com/Search/Det...50012+2012008#

JamesC

 

Wouldn't make sense for it to be packing material, since the pitman and idler arm does not seat all the way down on the shaft. That would not make sense, as there is bare metal touching then.

I left the inserts on, as there was no other "packing material" with the unit, and it wouldn't make sense to just install 2 bushing on the unit with nothing else in the box.

The idler arm I had ended up being defective. I had to exchange it for another one, and it seated further enough to get a cotter pin in.

Now to fix my toe in the morning....

 

They're sort of a dust seal for that joint. Thats all it is.

 

First time doing this type of steering setup, so that was definitely an experience to never forget. I figured they were on there for a reason, because literally....it was all assembled in the box, and nothing was in the box except the center link, literally.

I'm still not completely happy with how far the idler arm seated, but it is good enough, as I was able to get a cotter pin in. Car drove like crap because of the negative toe on the passenger side, wheel hop all the way down the street lol.

 

Foam is far different than rubber. He did say foam. Those seals are not foam, they are sponge like rubber synthetic.

When I answered this post, I was thinking of the recent post where the guy was trying to press fit the balljoint into the a-arm WITH the rubber dust boot on it trapped in the knurls. You just never know until you see a picture of what someone is really thinking of or trying. Foam is generally white and hard and VERY COMMONLY comes in packing boxes of car parts- Its sounded plausable to me- who knows?

 

I'm gonna have to say that you're my new best pal. I was looking at my new centerlink today and saw those rubber seals in a plastic bag and had NO clue where in the world they were supposed to go. I assumed they went where you have them, but just wasn't certain. So I come on here, check out the first page and... Not only did your post topic match exactly what I thought they were which led me in, but the question was answered AND you put up good clear photos of the setup installed. An all in one question and answer that saved me from a ridiculous amount of searching and guesswork. Thanks! My day has been improved significantly!

 

Elthesh, I am glad I was able to help you, and hope it helps many others in the future. =)

Thank you everyone for your replies, I eye'd out my toe, to where it is very close to perfect, but is probably off a 10th of a degree. Great thing is, my car doesn't shake like my wheel is going to fall off when braking at like 45mph lol.

 

Can these be bought separately? I trashed mine getting my pitman arm off to rebuild my steering box. Now I'm putting it all back together but none of the parts stores around seem to have anything or even know what it might be called. If not, guess I'll have to just use a tie rod boot.

 

I've never seen them for sale; not saying they don't exist though.

Should be pretty eeeezy to adapt a tie rod end boot. That's what I'd do if I needed one.