Polybush Blue anyone?

[michael67]

I replaced my radius arm bushings with Polybush Blue a couple years and about 5000 miles ago. Now, these bushings had been sitting on a shelf, in their box, in my workshop for several years before - I don't remember when I bought them, but I bought them new, and if I had to guess I'd say six years ago. Anyway, my 110 had set for a month or so recently while I tracked down an electrical issue (still not sure I fixed it but the problem is no longer there), so I took it out to go to town and run some errands, probably 25 miles in total. While going through a curvy section, my steering didn't feel right. When I hopped on a 65 MPH road and let off or pressed the accelerator, there was a definite pull. By the time I got home, there were clunks, knocks, and pulls galore. As I opened the door to the workshop where my 110 is normally parked, I saw blue crumbles where I had been parked. After pulling off the radius arms, here's most of what was left on the left side along with the tubes from the right side:

The frame mount bushings and one of the axle set bushings on the right side were completely gone, and not much was left of the remaining right side axle bushing.

I don't know if this is normal or I just got a bad batch, but I went back to the rubber bushings. Would having two summers with months of 100+ degree days do this?

Now I've got to get an alignment - I'm getting a death wobble, and I've never had one of those before. Hopefully an aligment will fix it.

 

[Overlander]

that's horrible. What is the make of those bushings? I can't imagine how any of those conditions you stated should lead to such failure as a reasonable outcome. I'm a fan of OEM rubber

 

[rocky]

that's horrible. What is the make of those bushings? I can't imagine how any of those conditions you stated should lead to such failure as a reasonable outcome. I'm a fan of OEM rubber

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of total failures from Polybushes.

Back to Rubber.

 

[erover82]

SuperPro is the only brand of urethane bushings I’d use.

 

[jymmiejamz]

This is typical for poly in my experience. They don’t wear out, they fail catastrophically.

 

[evilfij]

Yes, no poly suspension bushes go in my trucks. I suppose shock ones could be ok, but not on anything that if it fails it’s a problem.

 

[expanse]

poly blows.

 

[JimC]

Yep, same. Put Polybush (the brand) blue on my 110 back when I restored it in 2009. Parked it for 10 years, with no miles, bushings were falling apart. Utter trash.

 

[Siia109]

So anymore about the death wobble? I would think its all related given the radius arms are to stop that - but I also understand the disconnected mechanical failures that plaque British vehicles - i.e. replace a headlight and the speedometer stops working unless the right blinker is on...

 

[Angus]

I installed a set of orange Polybush bushings right after I bought the truck. Ran them for about 10 years with no issues. They showed wear, but no deterioration after that time. I have recently replaced them again with OE rubber as I galvanized the suspension components. I had installed the polybush set originally for ease of installation. What I realized is that getting the old bushings out is the hard part. Pressing the new ones in is easy.

 

[michael67]

So anymore about the death wobble? I would think its all related given the radius arms are to stop that - but I also understand the disconnected mechanical failures that plaque British vehicles - i.e. replace a headlight and the speedometer stops working unless the right blinker is on...

I needed new tires, so I shot the works - new tires, balance, alignment. No more death wobble. I went with a set of Cooper Discoverer AT3.

What's odd & annoying is that I had to go to four shops to get it aligned, telling each one that it was a '93 NAS 110: NTB said they didn't know how (even though I'd had it aligned at that location before), a local off-road shop who said he could get to it in two weeks (he's looking for help), a local shop who said they didn't know how, and finally a local shop who I had align it before. I would've gone to the last shop first but last time they were careless with the drag link clamp - they flipped the clamp around 180 degrees and the bolts punctured my steering damper; this time I told them to skip centering the steering wheel.

And yes, mine were also Polybush-brand Blue.

I had a Scrambler and installed red polyurethane bushings and never noticed deterioration like this. However, I sold it three years after putting them on.