[alfa] GTV6 DeDion Bushing / poly vs. Heim

[RonHorowitz <RonHorowitz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>RonHorowitz wrote:
>
>> Ahhhh,.... so you don't replace the old steel sleeve when you fit the
new
>> poly bushing! Well, that should be a breeze! (relatively....)
>
>The only steel sleeve I encountered was the 15mm or so one that goes
>into the OEM bush.  There's no trick to installing/removing that one, it
>just slides right in.
>
>Are you talking about the SZ busing?  Maybe I didn't read the original

>snip!<

>as to removing the old bush, they are plastic sleeved, and about 1/3 air,
>so they can actually be pushed out of the triangle pretty easily.

Hmmm... For some reason, I remembered the bushing as having a steel sleeve.
Must have been thinking of a Ford IRS or something....

>This is a fairly common occurrence.  not sure if the problem is the
bearing

On mine, the Heims were interference into the spacer, the space into the
deDion was about normal.

>, the
>interference can be so severe that the bearing is locked -

Yup.

>which of course
>is not a good thing.

I'll have to look it up, but one wonders if the Alfa boys wanted a tight
fit or if someone in QC was asleep at the switch. The deDion bushing sits
at the end of a long-ish radius arm, and a tight fit _might_ tend to
increase the service life (wild guess) but you'd think there' be a lot more
stiction in the "tight" bearing. Hmmmm.....

>In these cases, the spacer ring needs to be machined

If you happen to have a lathe in your shop, the advantage to buying the
Alfa part is that it's easier than making your own. If you have to
re-machine the Alfa part, you won't be very happy about it. On the other
hand, if you have to stop what you're doing and borrow time on someone
else's lathe, or worse, if you have to pay someone to do the job for you,
you'll be less happy still.

Reminds me of some words of wisdom an old mechanic friend passed along to
me when I was a younger man:

"Cars are a pain in the ass."

Ah, well,... Off to build race cars....

RON
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