Wow those are some shocking images of new garage supplied and fitted bushes, im no expert but have now done both front arms and bushes myself on the ZTT as a newbie "3 star diy'er", didnt even manage to mess it up like that lol.
Last week got myself into a pickle replacing the drivers side lower arm and bush, made mistake of buying an arm and bush together on ebay in what was claimed to be "Ebays largest and best automotive parts store" lol.
Long story short the bush arrived already pressed onto the arm which concerned me immediately as was clearly pressed on to far beyond the marks on the arm and with no way to adjust it it was on tight and never coming off in one piece. The cheap bush looked pretty poor quality anyway, both rubber bush material and steel housing where shoddy looking but that didnt stop me ignoring my inner voice and attempting to fit it! After all it took 3 days to get the old one off with that central ball joint playing hard to get so how hard could it be? and the weight of the car will cause it the arm to self adjust in the bush lol (my erroneous rational at the time confirmed by this thread!!)
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The result of going into combat with a wrongly fitted bush on the arm was being unable to get the second bolt in properly and so damaging the top few threads in one of the the sub frame holes out of frustration trying to fit the arm with that cheap and wrongly pressed bush on it! Defeated I took a couple of days off for my arms to heal, complained at the seller to help my spirit a bit (partial refund obtained
), then bought a Moog bush from that eurocar parts place delivered in 24 hours no messing and so cut the wrongly pressed bush off, which im keeping as a reminder for the future lol. Also had to buy a M14 x 2mm thread pitch tap to repair the sub frame threads I mauled and of course new high tensile M14 x 40 bolts (ebay supplied hard to find elsewhere presently). After retapping the bush hole and getting the new arm and moog bush on in an hour or so was properly gutted to find there was still play in the drivers side front wheel but slight unlike before with that well worn arm, i think it was original and car is at 162K now. Not sure how long this cheap ebay arm will last but car is much better with a tight arm on and rattles less on the superbly neglected A roads......
So now contemplating replacing the entire hub for a second hand one if can find something decent unless can find somebody local to press in new bearings as i dont have the kit to do that sadly but thats a different thread for another day.
Can I just say and at risk of speaking the obvious but its very important to get the best bush you can afford, i learned that last week and everywhere i look especially like this thread its an excellent example why.
What do folks think of the moog parts as generally curious, the Moog bush looks a lot better bush than the cheapo ebay one. I have images of it all but cant post them as of yet, image below of the moog and bits used to fix my ZTT.
