Hi,
I bought a new adjustable beam (ball joint) from CB Performance, and decided to try urethane bushings when I realized how much slop there was between my trailing arms and the needle bearings and/or mica bushings (and no, the arms are not excessively worn.)
As with most after market stuff I have tried in the last year, I hit a road block during the install. The top tube bushings are (1) piece, so there was no problem with them.
The bottom tube uses (2) piece units on each side. The problem occurred with the inner bushing on each side of the beam. There is an interference fit between the trailing arm and the inner bushing. I dry- fit the inner bushings onto the trailing arm before assembly, and all was well. But after inner bushing is in place, the arm stops dead when the tapered edge of the arm comes in contact with the smaller inner diameter of the bushing (these are Bugpack bushings, BTW.)
My conclusion was the outer diameter of the inner bushing was out of tolerance, and when the bushing was inserted into the tube, the bushing's inner diameter was squeezed down. I am to the point where I will re-install a new set of shitty mica's just to done with the job....
If I install mica inners and urethane outers, will I create another problem since the mica was intended to work with the outer needle bearing?
Has anyone had this problem? Is anyone else out there as fed up with VW after market parts as I am?????
Tom