Replacing bearings and bushings....for nothing!

[rainierdeklark]

Three years ago, my Beetle didn't pass the MOT because of the rusty front torsion beam. Because I didn't have a place to fix it myself, I had it replaced by a Beetle specialist.

A while ago I noticed that the bearing/trailing arms had some excessive play and since I was about to restore a front beam of my other project (both ball joint), I ordered all the bushings, bearings and seals at cip1.com

First I tested the play on the trailing arms from my project car and some had a little play and some didn't. But because I wanted everything new, I took off the trailing arms, placed a new bushing over it and...it allready had some play (!).

When I measured the inner diameter of that bushing, it was 37.5 mm. The diameter of the trailing arm was 37.0 mm. Maybe it was worn out? I measured the other 3 arms and all of them were 37.0 mm. Then I pulled out all the bushings (and bearings) of the front beam.

When I placed one of the old bushings over the trailing arm, I noticed that it had no play at all and when I measured that one, it had an inner diameter of 37.0 mm. Strange, I thought; the new bushings allready have some play. These bushings are also sold here in Sweden and in Holland by the way.

Yesterday I replaced all the bushings (the ones I took out were only three years old and were exactly the same as the new ones I bought) of my 1974 torsion bar Beetle and thought that the excessive play problem might solve itself when I mount the new ones, because of the dimple that sits in the front beam where the bushings are located and maybe those dimples press the bushing in a litlle so that the play will diappear.


After half a day work everything was mounted in place again, I mounted the wheels back and....the play is still there. All that work for nothing!
It's obvious that those bushings are crap.
Now I'm wondering if the urethane bushings have the same problem. I chose to go for the originals, because of all the stories I've heard about urethane, especially that they squeak som much, and I really don't want that.

Does anybody has an idea what to do now? My car needs new MOT soon and I want to fix it before that.


A slide hammer that I recently bought. The large washer (I've cut the sides of it) hooks behind the bearing, so that I can "hammer" it out.

A threadded stud with a modified nut (that fits right through the place where the torsion bars are fixed in the beam) and a similar washer again.

The new bushing is getting into place (the top one goes 13 cm into the beam and the lower one 14 cm).

And the bearing.

If you want to place the torsion leafs back, it's easier if you grind the sharp edges first.

The crappy bushing.

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[rainierdeklark]

Both CIP1 och PARUZZI (Holland) claim on their webbsite that these bushings are for ball joint beams:

But at Classic VW Up North's (Swedish) webbsite it says that the bushings for ball jointss are made of metal, so does Hoffmann Speedster (Germany). Could it be that CIP1 and PARUZZI are wrong and I need the metal ones?

Tonight I will pull out the bushing of my project car that doesn't have any play and take a picture of those one. I can remember that they were metal, or at least had a metal sleeve on the outside. Probably those ones are original.....
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Modern cars are nothing but visual pollution !
www.klarkclassiccars.se

[rainierdeklark]

This is a picture of the old bushing that I pulled out and that had no play. Could this be the original? Where can I order these?

Dimensions: 45,0 x 37,0 x 23,0 mm

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Modern cars are nothing but visual pollution !
www.klarkclassiccars.se

[towd]

From what I know that type beam in the states was only aftermarket Brazilian replacements.

The VW beams had a steel needle bearing,,, upper and lower are different sizes.. This I know up to 73 for sure..

[rainierdeklark]

[Misul from Transilvania]

Hello!
I've bought a 60000km front beam from a '70 karmann ghia.The arms are in perfect shape, from my original car.It has a little play without the spring plates...is it normal?

[partonkevin]

good info on this. I can't help you, but I enjoyed the tutorial.

[Misul from Transilvania]

@rainierdeklark do you have something new on this subject? did you resolve the problem? i don"t now what to do with that play...

[rainierdeklark]

Well, I did solve the problem, but it's still a mystery to me how others do it.
I got the bushings from a Swedish VW supplier, but those were just the inner metal bushings.
So, I sanded out a few milimeters from the inside of the micarta bushings, pressed the metal bushings into the micarta's (don't hammer the bushings, the micarta's will break. Be carefull!) and pressed the whole thing into the beam (be carefull again).
I really wonder how others do that, that chose not to go for urethane....


Micarta bushing:

Sand a few milimeters from the inside:

Press the metal bushing into the micarta bushing:

Orginal VS home made:

Press the whole thing into the beam:

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Modern cars are nothing but visual pollution !
www.klarkclassiccars.se

[johnnypan]

By cutting the micarta bushing with the drill motor odds are your bore is distorted,now the bronze split bushing bushing might be tight in the micarta but if its not supported equally by the micarta it will fail.Bronze split bushings require support by the full bore its being pressed into to survive.You mention in your initial post a small amount of play with the micarta alone...is this play evident when fully assembled and lubed?

[rainierdeklark]

[Misul from Transilvania]

I dissasembled my front beam and found two original bushings(on one of them the sleeve is loose) and two are manufactured in Romania from "duramid" that i think it has the same qualityes as urethane...
I will make the bushings from duramid and insert the metal sleeve...
Is it neccesary to replace the bearings?they have no play....

[rainierdeklark]

You only have to replace the bearings if they show a great deal of wear, like discoloring or pitting. Mostly they're fine. I replaced them because I ordered them before I took them out. So I already had new ones....
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Modern cars are nothing but visual pollution !
www.klarkclassiccars.se

[schunacher]

I have been trying to figure out how to do this on a link pin beam so when I came across this thread I remembered some info you guys probably did not see since you are ball joint guys. The title says the bushings need reaming so its logical that the BJ ones did too (rainierdeklark used a drum sander, posted above). I don't think reamers are very expensive but I need to find a reamer before I try this (anyone know where to buy good reamers?).

And just for reinforcement WW says the same thing:

And it seems that CIP has the metal inner bushing sleeves for ball joint but doesn't really know exactly what they are for or how to install them (click on the image and it will get bigger to read the fine print):

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[DET]

I recently purchased a new beam for my 1973 bug. The paint is crap and I wanted to get the thing powder coated before installing it, as I am redoing the whole car. I was trying to figure out how to remove all the bearings and bushings before taking it to the powder coater. I made a tool like yours (the treaded rod) and added a receiver tube from a ball joint remover tool so that the bearings could travel all the way out of the torsion. It worked better than anticipated. Thank you!

[W1K1]

[JasonBaker]

I am a super guy, don't care to know much about the front beam anyway. But I saw a guy put the Idler arm bushing in the freezer and heat up the assembly to get it to work

[fmartin_gila]

In the latest Harbor Freight Tool Catalog, they have a set of adjustable reamers that are not too expensive. Don't know if the range would cover this application, but might be worth checking out.

Fred

[schunacher]

[ilustr8tor]

Go to Advanced auto parts and get the tool in the photo, they offer free toll rental, you pay 189.00 for it but get all your money back when you return the tool complete and clean:

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