Ls400 Upper wishbone bushes

[Howplum]

The bushes are Febest, as sold be Amayama and others. The ball joints are unbranded, so possibly caveat emptor applies. Unfortunately product feedback on eBay isn't widely used, maybe with good reason.

[Razor61]

On 5/2/2023 at 7:41 PM, Luke Kidd 1 said:

That's great thankyou very much, those look like the oem quality to me, hopefully not the cheap ebay stuff I've seen people say lasts a year at best

Looks to be decent stuff. New arms from Amayama are £280 delivered plus import duty etc. of approx. £68 - total £350 plus the parcel force admin fee of £12 (I think) so all in around £360 - £370. Not far off double the price of the aftermarket bushes and ball joints, £190 by my reckoning.

[Howplum]

I intend to overhaul my suspension at some point and have been looking into polyurethane versus rubber bushings. There are pros and cons for each, assuming originality is not required. The polyurethane ones are easier to fit and potentially will last a long time, although there might be slight reduction in ride quality.

For the polyurethane I narrowed my options to one manufacturer, Strongflex, who offer two hardness levels on most bushings. Their red bushings are 80 ShA and the yellow ones are 90 ShA. They do a front suspension kit for £155 which contains a mixture, which they say equates to the equivalent OEM items. They don't seem to offer the upper arm bushings separately.

As for rubber, Febest seem to offer a comprehensive range, although they do require a press to fit.

 

[Luke Kidd 1]

Yeah, would definitely be interested to see how polybushes affect the ride, from strong flex for the rear upper wishbone bushes they only have the harsher ones of 90 sha, which has put me off. 

I believe oem is 70, so could live with 80 provided there was no other option and the longevity of them is definitely a plus, i think on this occasion when I get round to it I will try the febest ones, if they don't last long even when fitted correctly then I guess it's either a whole new arm at considerable cost or hoping that polybushing just the rear upper wishbone doesn't ruin the car.

[Razor61]

1 hour ago, Luke Kidd 1 said:

they only have the harsher ones of 90 sha, which has put me off. 

To quote the website 'Some bushes is only available in 90ShA hardness (yellow) because the original rubber bushes is made of a hard rubber compound.'
That is probably true because I noticed a difference in the hardness between the rubber bushes when I replaced all the suspension on my car with OEM arms/bushes, I checked the stuff I took off to see if they were cracked or split and noticed it.
For example, the front strut bushes are/were softer than the front lower arm bushes which were in great condition.

[runsgrateasanut]

I've replaced UCA's with cheapy's but I always replace the Rubber part with items from the below company. I recall reading that one member said the rubber  on unused parts hanging in his garage disintegrated.  Invariably a split rubber is a MOT fail and allows dirt into the part, so.........   https://www.southwalesprops.co.uk/propshaft/consumables/ball_joint.htm

 

 

[Malc1]

5 minutes ago, runsgrateasanut said:

I've replaced UCA's with cheapy's but I always replace the Rubber part with items from the below company.

how des this work then  .........  the rubber parts integral to the UCA  !

Malc