Fen

No, I don't believe it is, but mine were perished, I want to tighten it up and I'm a "while I'm in there" freak.

Oddjob

Nope, its not a given. And unless you have a genuine need (dedicated track use), or you just like to put extra cool stuff on your car, or the bushings themselves are shot, I would leave the rubber on the spring plates.

M758

I agree.
I replaced mine, but this was for a track car. You may actually prefer rubber for a street driven car even if you want to frim up the rear a bit.

Kool

Can I tell the condition without taking the entire suspension apart?

Fen

On mine you could see the cracks in the rubber between the inner and outer parts.

ehall

I have also heard of a method where you basically heat them up and melt them off. Nasty job I'd think.

Antonio

Another resounding endorsement for M758's posted procedure! It worked for me the first time. No issues whatsoever. Thanks M758! As far as the bushings, I agree with others that it makes sense to replace them at that time. Removing the old ones is a bit of a pain. I ended up cutting most of the material with a knife, I burned the remainder and I cleaned it off with a wire wheel. The whole job took me about one weekend but I work slowly. This not a difficult job. I don't understand why some people have so much trouble with this.

Elephant Chuck

Yes!

Look at the position of the tube portion of the spring plate that sticks through the spring plate covere. It should be concentric in the hole.

As the bushings age, they cold-flow under the weight of the car (miles or not). In time they get oblong and the spring plates becomes non-concentric in the cover plate hole. In extreme cases, the spring plate tube will actually contact the metal of the cover plate! Don't let this happen, when they start to go - replace them.

There is an easy way to remove the rubber bushings. Heat the inside of the spring plate tube with a torch, melting the rubber were it's vulcanized. It can then easily be seperated and removed almost in one peice.

This is illustrated with pics in my write up. Check part two here:
https://rennlist.com/forums/924-931-944-951-968-forum/147665-how-to-spring-plate-bushing-replacement-part-2-a.html



In general, if you are going to reindex or replace the tbars, you will want to replace the bushings. Given the age, most are ready now. Plus it's easy to do "while you are in there". It's just the extra cost of the bushings/bearings, the labor is the same.

TRACKIN951

The torsion bar job is really not all that bad. I just replaced mine with 28mm bars and had the job done in probably 4-5 hours. The trick is not dropping the whole assembly but dropping one side at a time. The first side I went a little slow, but the second side I got the Tbar out in 20 minutes, granted getting out is a little easier than installing, but... Luckily I got the reindexing right the first time