SharkSkin

Better to chalk this set of bushings up to education... If you have a small-diameter steel bottlebrush or a dremel brush that will fit in there, clean the bore to bare metal, but don't use any abrasives. If it's clean, the bushings should press right in with a dab of moly grease and a touch of persuasion. Steady pressure is preferred over any type of impact.

Sure the bushing is $17... but how much are valves?

jon928se

Surely a tight fit is good - these bushings are not exactly doing a lot of movement. A few degrees each way (once) with each heat cycle of the engine. The rotational force imposed by the tensioner adjusting bolt or the tension in the belt is way more than enough to make sure they move.

Garth S

If you can push the carrier arm back and forth with finger and thumb, it will work fine in service. If concerned that the outer lip of the 'hole' may have mushroomed inwards, use a sharp drill bit (~1/2") hand held as a chamfering tool .... and carve a fine hair of the lip away. Stay away from abrasives in the hole as Dave said.

WallyP

If you can move the arm with your fingers, it will certainly move with the pressure of the belt and the tensioner. I would put it in as is.

Mike Frye

Bill,

When you get the new bushings, don't be tempted to shrink them in the freezer, this only works with rubber bushings (Someone posted that they had tried this once and it was a no-go).

What I did just to get them started was to take some really fine sandpaper (400 grit wet-dry) and just lightly take down the leading edge of each bushing so that it was slightly chamferred. Once you can get the bushing started squarely in the tensioner arm past the first lip, a clamp or wooden workmate will walk it smoothly in on both sides (one at a time). This doesn't affect the movement, since the shoulder and most of the thickness of the bushing hasn't changed, once the pair is in, smooth movement.