Hi all,
Thanks to Steve Weiner I've started my polybronze install tonight. Thought I'd share my discoveries...

First is the job at hand, I am lucky it's relatively clean under there.

Pic of the eccentric bolt for the toe adjust.

Got the arm free of the spring plate.


Cover plate off. you can see the deformation of the original rubber bushing.

 

Spring plate off. You can see the deformation of the rubber on the lower right side compared to the lower left.

That's what happens when a car has been sitting on you for 34 years!!

Will carry on tomorrow

 

Oh! While I was in there I noticed the rear sway bar mounts had fallen apart.

One more to the list!!

 

Yes did mine last year, amazing how we let those rubber bushings go. It's a huge difference in ride quality once it's done though

 

nice - I have this on my short list

 

Wish I'd gone Polybronze or OEM rubber for my bushings. The car's PO had bought new bushings but not installed them...I wanted to save money so I had his bushings put in...without doing my homework on the different types.

Turns out the front A-arm bushings are polygraphite. They're noisy as hell. I think I may get a re-do.

Frank, how about a big photo of your '76?

 

My old bushings looked similar. That is what decades of pressure will do to them and I think they actually look pretty good for 34 years. Mine were only 25 years old and looked maybe even worse. I think a lot of the classic 911s that haven't had bushings done yet need them by now.

I notice you have a combination of the old, single-piece spring plates and the newer aluminum semi-trailing arms. Are you planning to change spring plates to the adjustable style?

 

Ray, my 76 is some what of a Frankenporsche!! That's it in my avatar. I've owned it for more years than I'd like to mention and only in this past 12 months have I been able to pour some money into it. So I've been hitting it hard.

500, I have new elephant racing Spring plates that are going in.

The bottom pic is of the inner sleeves that you have to glue on. JB weld is pretty rare down here so I used Loctite 3805. It's made for this sort of thing. You just have to make sure that you get the excess off after it's gelled but before it hardens too much. I used a razor blade and it came off pretty easily.

 

Oh yes! Very, very nice stuff!

I imagine the improvement will be dramatic. It will be interesting to know how much the noise/vibration/harshness lessens with the new parts. I expect it will be noticeable.

Of course things will be much more precise in the handling department too.

 

A couple of more pics for tonight:

Went to a friends place and used his press to fit the bearing to the cover plate. You don't really need a press, you could do it with a bench vice but I don't have one of those.


The instructions say to grind the high spots off where the tube has been welded in.

 

Here I'm using the cover plate to press the inner bearing into the tube. For a spacer I'm using a very large brass guard from a sword


Test fit to see if all is OK.

 

The kit includes 16 2mm washers (spacers) to put between the coverplate and the mounts. It says that when fitting to an early car like mine that extra spacers will be required. As I found out, I used all the spacers on just one side. (8mm total) I ended up drilling out 8 10mm cad plated nuts to use as spacers. They each are 7.6mm thick.
Here I'm using a dial indicator to check the end float (clearance).

It has to be 1.5mm +/- 0.75mm.
I got the right side to 1.6 mm
And the left side to 2.08 mm

Both within spec. The difference is because of the amount of grinding one has to do and manufacturing tolerances when the tubes and mounts where installed at the factory.

Well, I'm off camping tomorrow and will be back on Sunday when I'll be test fitting the torsion bars and trying to set the angles of the spring plates.

So long till then, and to all of my American brothers, Happy Thanks Giving

 

Excellent Frank. These parts are wonderfully thought out and function even better!

 

Looks great. I'm think'n of going that way when I refresh.

 

No worries, mate. I'll send you new ones.