GS714

Can you show me some pictures pointing at the sources. Anyway, I just did the front brake pads with the shim kit, cost more than the pad its self, and its took away the pad hitting the rotor noise.

BayAreaLex

After reading this entire thread, I am scared to fuss around with the maze of information/misinformation that is the polyurethane caster arm bushing for the GS..., wow, lol.

Also, can anyone tell me if these Sewell bushings have grease fittings?

BayAreaLex

lol, the front suspension on these cars are HUGE piles of S

O1GS43O

well this sucks if my daizens start clunking ill make new sleeves on the lathe to the right specs

BayAreaLex

lyonkster, reading through this discussion again, I'm very curious how your Daizen bushings would have responded if you did the following:

- Reused the inner sleever rather than chiseling it out
- Used a stud insert (aka inner sleeve) that matched OEM spec

I'm betting that this would have prevented the clunking problem that you observed.


What I am taking home from all this is the following:

- The outer sleeve should be left inside the caster arm when using poly bushings. If the outer sleeve is removed, then the bushing will likely have too much play inside the arm when under load out on the road.

- The poly caster arm bushings require an inner sleeve. When it comes to Daizen, they included an inner sleeve that seems to have an ID (inner diameter) that is too large for the stud on the car resulting in excessive play. I'm not sure if the problem has been corrected by Daizen or if the Daizens are even available anymore. When it comes to Sewell, it looks like they used to offer these bushings without inner sleeves and you had to use the stock one. Some members used propane torches to burn out their stock inner sleeves or other methods of pressing it out and getting it clean with a wire wheel. In 2012, members have reported that the Sewell bushings come with inner sleeves. I received mine yesterday and can confirm that the inner sleeve was included to my delight.

- The Daizen/Sewell poly caster bushings are not the best design being 1-pc because they aren't allowed to articulate with movements in the suspension. Not only does poly transmit more NHV, but the single pc design also serves to increase spring rate for a harsher ride.

With that said, I enjoy a solid front end with a solid feel and I'm still going to press foward and do the poly bushings in the caster arms as well as poly in the steering rack.

lyonkster

It probably would have helped. I still think that the design of the Daizen, with the poly being compressed when you tighten the stud nut, does not allow the inner sleeve to be properly loaded, which also contributes to clunking. I just don't like the Daizen approach of having contact between the bushing and the body, I think the OEM approach of isolating the stud from the arm is the right approach.

Agreed.

I would not have minded a solid feel, the problem was that the Daizens were clunking .

It appears that the Sewell bushing approach, with the smaller inner sleeve diameter, has been working out for folks better than the Daizens, so maybe that's a good way to go too. I am just happy as a clam with my OEM-type Rocas .

BayAreaLex

Lyonkster, thanks for the update. I wonder if the diameter of your inner stud opened up with time? In other words, since the inner sleeve was never properly loaded, it allowed just a tiny bit of play between the sleeve and the stud that eventually caused the inner diameter to open up?

I plan to tackle the Sewell poly bushings this week along with their rack bushings.

I will report back.

BayAreaLex

Hi folks,

I managed to install the Sewell poly caster arm bushings in my 2001 GS430 (also did the Sewell rack bushings at the same time which were cake to install).

First, thanks to the original thread starter. I printed the directions out and they were quite helpful.

It looks like some people have done it faster but the job took me a solid 5-6hrs (first attempt with hand tools) due to a couple unexpected hangups that I will get to shortly. Since this thread covers the procedure pretty extensively, I will just note some findings/impressions that I came across.

1.) Removing the stock bushings - The stock bushings had no shortage of cracks and looked to be overly compliant after 95K miles. Since I don't have a press and since the local machine shops wanted ~$30 to swap each bushing for me, I decided to go ahead and burn them out with a torch. This process worked ok, but I will admit, it took a lot more propane and a lot more time than I expected to get them out. Once I got them on fire, the damn things burned for a solid 10minutes. Once the bulk of the rubber was out, I used a dremel with a sanding extension to get the last bits of rubber residue out. One other reason why it took longer than expected is because I was careful to not put too much heat on the metal outer sleeve in the caster arm since that needs to stay in place with the Sewell bushings. I was concerned that if I cranked up the torch heat too high, that sleeve might separate from the caster arm. Luckily everything stayed in tact.

2.) Pressing in the Sewell poly bushings - This turned out to be the biggest surprise of the install. I heard stories about people having to use 10 or 12 ton presses to get these things in; not in my experience. I used the Energy Suspension poly bushing lube (part# ENS-9.11110) and applied it to the outside of the bushing as well as to the inside of the caster arm bore. I was starring at it for a solid 15 minutes trying to decide how to get them in without a press. I had a small vice and thought to myself, "there is no way this vice will get these bushings in, but I'll give it a shot." I took two pieces of wood, put the bushing and caster arm between them, and cranked on the vice. They went RIGHT in without any fuss. I attribute it to the lube.

For you guys who will be attempting this in the future, a press will work great but you do not need one as a vice and some lube will do the trick just fine. It does take a little bit of finesse to keep the bushing from misaligning. Having an extra hand helps too. My old man was tighting the vice while I kept everything aligned.

Keep in mind that if the bushings were not lubed, there would be no way in hell that a vice alone would do it because the coefficient of friction would be far too high. With the reputation that poly bushings have for squeaking, I don't know why anyone would install them dry however.

3.) The hardest part - installing the caster arms back in. With the new super stiff bushings, getting the caster arms back in place was a massive PITA...

First, no matter what I did, I could not get the damn bushing side to slip completely over the stud since the front of the caster arm was restricted by the front lower control arm (the front control arm hardly lets the front of the caster arm move). What ended up working for me was to press the inner sleeve out of the bushings and install each sleeve on the stud first by itself. Then I brought the caster arm up to the inner sleeve and jacked it up (using a floor jack) forcing the bushing to slide over the inner sleeve. That worked great and yes, the inner sleeve got some lube too.

Next came the most daunting part of the install. Getting the damn caster arm holes to align with the bolts. Wow, this was a frustrating experience. The original thread starter had a good idea with using a wrench on the bushing side of the caster arm to rotate it slightly. That's one degree of freedom that you have. The other degree of freedom is to grab the brake assembly and push it either forward or backward. After about 20 minutes of unsuccessful attempts, I brought in the Navy seals. I had one helper turning the wrench and another helper moving the brake assembly forward and backward as I aligned the holes. We finally got things aligned but I felt like one bolt on each side was stripping. They finally went in though and I torqued them down to 110-120 ft-lbs.

I wish I had a better method for aligning those holes, but I don't. What ended up working is helpers and lots of force. Whoever designed the front suspension of the 2GS deserves to get slapped around and put in solitary confinement for a week, lol.

Anyway, I have not driven the car yet but hoping for a nice improvement in road manners.

I will report back once I have some miles under my belt.

One other thing that I thought was interesting today... By removing my centercaps as I installed the wheels, I noticed that my metal hubcentric rings sit at different depths into the wheel bore if I install the ring on the hub followed by the wheel VS installing the ring into the wheel bore and then installing the wheel on the hub. I'm not sure this makes a difference, but it's something I noted and will give some more thought to.

I hope this post is helpful to the folks who go through this in the future.

BayAreaLex

bedes

Just picked up a Pearl White GS 400. Thank you to everyone that has contributed here. I've read through this entire thread - still having a hard time deciding whether to install OEM bushings or go poly with Tein FLEX coilovers. I think with the higher spring rates in the Tein FLEX that poly bushings may be overkill on a DD. I want it stiff, but the wife has to drive it too.

Where is the cheapest place online to order the OEM bushings?

lyonkster

Yup, that sure brings back some memories .

BayAreaLex

Just wanted to update my post above.

Although the Sewell poly caster bushings improved my steering wheels shimmy along with the handling and overall feel of the car, it took MOOG replacement balljoints and outer tie rod ends to eliminate it completely. Please keep in mind that both my Lexus dealer and my local mechanic were telling me that there was nothing wrong with these parts. When we removed the 95K mile tie rod ends and balljoints, the tie rod ends felt great, very tight. But the balljoints felt dry and loose even though there was no detectable play while they were on the car. Moral of the story, if your balljoints have significant miles, just replace them the next time you are in there. I think I paid $35 per balljoint from Rockauto.com

The steering feels brand new.

credle89

i have bought the same bushing for my 98 GS400 but had to bring them back because i was told that the hole was to big from the stock ones but i see in your pic that they are bigger.. how does the car ride with the hole being bigger?

Mr Jokster

iTrader: (8)

Ive mentioned in another thread (and many others) thats its much easier to install arm WITHOUT the bushing first then press the bushing in place. I was able to get the caster bushing in in less than 5 minutes.

If the hole is bigger, you got the wrong ones. or you removed the outer sleeve from the stock one as the package instructed not to.

BayAreaLex

As alternatives to a press, you can either use a vice to press them into the arm (like I did) or you can install the bushing on the stud, place the caster arm under a jack (just outside the circular part where the arm connects to the caster arm ring), and jack the arm into the bushing (that worked perfectly too).

I didn't think to jack the bushing into the already installed arm, probably because I thought the stud would get in the way. But if you use something hollow to prevent interference with the stud, it would probably work too.

Lube makes all this pretty easy.

+1, if the hole is bigger it's likely that you got the wrong ones or failed to use the stock metal inner sleeve (Sewell's design comes with inner sleeves but you have to reuse the stock outer sleeve). Daizen requires you to reuse both I believe.

GHSER7

iTrader: (4)

I've got to say, that was a very easy task. I got the Poly ones from Sewell. Pulled the arms off, had a buddy that works at Sewell push out the old bushings(which took longer than anything else) last night. Reinstalled everything this morning. I was worried it was going to the a b*tch to get it back in with everything I read here, but that wasn't the case. Took a little moving around but seemed to go on very smooth.

From tires on the to ground to remove everything took less than 45mins, same with reinstalling and back on the road. Feels great so far.... only less than 5 miles driven though.