'87 5KCSQ rear bushing advise needed

["Sheffield Corey" <SHEF@omdc.gso.uri.edu>]

Hi Gang,

	I know; it has been a while. Traveling on business and Summer sailing
have kept me away from the list. And, the power of a "Charlie spring" and a
"Shrapnel knoben", not to mention Koni's all the way around have taken their
toll on my 130k mile old bushings. I'm getting a pretty good "clunk" or
"tramping" noise in the right rear during acceleration over rough pavement.
When I had her in a couple of weeks ago for a brake and clutch bleeding I went
lookin' for the source of the noise. My mechanic said he thought it was the
large bushing at the rear of the trap. arm, but I found that the strap that
holds the fuel pulse dampener had rusted away on top and that the dampener
could move about with ease. A new stainless band re-secured the dampener and
for a few days I thought I was in good shape. But an extra person or two brings
the "clunking" back with a vengence. A search of the archives for "rear
bushings" brought back nothing of real use except that there may be two
different bushings for the same application and the older of the two may be
preferable; and something about one bushing costing $200.00, but the other one
is only $9.00. I've spoken with Bro' Chris at Autobahn and he says that they
swap out the whole trap. arm and do not R+R the bushings. Now I know from my
Bentley that there are two different trap. arms for the later 5 KCSQ's and they
are not interchangable. My May of '87 car would use the newer of the two.
Bentley shows the bushing being R+R'd; do any of you have the proper part #'s
and what they ought to cost. Should I do all the rear bushings while I'm in
there or is it better and more cost effective to just replace the whole trap.
arm or arms??? I don't think the "tramping" noise is coming from the driveshaft
universal and bushing, but is there anything else I should be looking at. The
noise does seem to be coming from over my right shoulder(LHD car). All help and
advice will be appreciated.

	BTW, the Dunlop D40 M2's I put on last Spring have be superb in both
wet and dry conditions. The "Charlie spring" sent the ol' OEM shocks and struts
to places they'd never been before and after about two months of the "spring"
they were trashed. I wanted a set of four struts/shocks from the same
manufacturer and when I looked only Koni did this. I tried a set of Boge's that
where guaranteed to fit but they wouldn't without modification so I returned
them. Koni told me that I should set their units to the softest setting and
they would still be 25% stiffer than OEM. There is no doubt about this. On a
perfect road these would be perfect dampeners, but on our frost-heaved and
pot-holed New England roads they can be rather "abrupt". I would not want them
on anything but the softest setting. Granted, the car is almost 11 years old
and does have 130k miles under her belt, but she is developing new rattles at
an alarming rate.

	I hope you've all fared well this Summer, happy motoring,

								Shef

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            0                    Shef Corey                    0
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            U          E-mail: shef@omdc.gso.uri.edu           Q
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