I would appreciate that very much Neil! It's the little white plastic push-in vent that I'm referring to. Actually, I could get away with just the cap if they have any but would love it if you could find one for me sir. I zipped the cap on mine with the wire wheel when I was cleaning it. No rush whatsoever so anytime at your convenience. Thanks in advance for checking for me. Hope your summer was good and you were able to get some progress made on your project. Thanks Neil!

 

I got my new leaf springs today - exciting times! The springs arrived un-boxed and were covered in scratches/gouges in the paint so I called Summit. I sent them a picture of the springs and the guy gave me $50 back for having to buy more paint for them, pretty good deal there. Par for the course but the new shackle bolts are backorder/special order and won't be shipped until around the 17th. Gives me a deadline to get the last little bit of the bottom of the Camaro sanded and the entire bottom painted. I'm oh so close and will NEVER take a grinder with a wire wheel to the bottom of another car again. That job has exploded to the top of my least favorite jobs list on this rebuild! Can't see how anything will be able to top it either.

Anyway, have a question regarding these new springs. They came with the front eye bushing (rubber of course) installed and I've got poly bushings for the leafs. Is there any opinions or suggestions as to why/why not I should just leave the rubber bushings in there and just use them? I can get them out to use the poly bushings but not so sure I want to deal with the headache of removing them. Guess my main question is if that would be detrimental to the performance of the springs with rubber in front and poly in the back? Might just break down and remove them but if there's no legitimate reason to do it, then again I might just leave them alone. I would welcome ANY suggestions from anyone. Thanks in advance!

 

Mine came the same way, all scratched up, and rubber bushings. Wish I'd have thought to call them and get a discount; I just painted them.
I wouldn't mix rubber and poly on the same spring. Either get rubber for the rear, or get them out and put poly in both ends. I usually drill some holes in the rubber and work the bit around and the rubber will come out easy then.

 

I was very pleased when the guy offered $25 off on each spring when I called. He said that was to cover sand paper and new paint. I showed him a pic of what they looked like and he told me that he would be upset too. The purpose of my call wasn't to get something for nothing, but to let them know that they should probably wrap them in plastic or box them because UPS is doing it. The UPS lady that delivered them just slid them across the floor of the truck, tilted them up on end and slid them down the metal rail to the ground where she let go and they fell over onto the ground. When I saw her do the first one I went running out in my boxers telling her to wait a damn minute and I would help! Ignorant wretch.

Getting the rubber bushings out will be ok, just not looking forward to removing more of them is all. I'll be able to try out a new drill I just got so I suppose there's some good to this. Thanks for the reply Vall.

 

Actually PTFB recommended I run poly and rubber. I want to say my springs came with rubber in front and poly rear or vise versa. Or was it rubber in the top of the shackle? Hmm? I have to look now.

 

Too late. Well, for me anyway. Already got one of those miserable suckers out. And I thought removing the old ones were bad! The center sleeve fought me until I completely drilled and chiseled the rubber from the entire circumference of it. I seriously think Summit used glue when they installed this bushing. Once the center sleeve was removed, what was left of the bushing was totally stuck to the inside of the bushing sleeve. Broke a sweat on that thing for sure! Hence the removal of only ONE of them. I had just finished doing some brake work on a friends ride (drums) and I was tired anyway. I had to take a couple pics of his front rotors as I've never seen anything this bad before. To make matters worse, he had only bought pads thinking it was going to fix the grinding! LOL To top it all off, he went ahead (after I flat out refused to help) and installed the new pads thinking it would help "even if I stop 20% better" his situation. Enjoy the pics! LOL

 

Did they say why they thought it was better to mix bushing types? Can't imagine a good reason you'd want one bushing to deflect more than the other?

 

I drilled the rubber out with a bunch of 3/8" holes all around, and then stuck a sawzall blade inside one hole and just ran it around to connect the holes. Center dropped out, and then I got the rest out easily.
That's the saddest rotor I've ever seen! Wonder how he was able to stop with those?

 

I'm in desperate need of a new battery for my sawzall, that certainly would've made things easier so I was trying to do it similarly with the drill bit. I seriously think there was some kind of glue used on these bushings, had to fight it every step of the way. When I went out to close up the garage I looked around and was able to find my spare battery and I put it on the charger. Hopefully it'll work easier for me tomorrow.

That rotor is pretty pathetic isn't it? Wish I would've taken pics of the other side. The rear pad was missing the entire pad! Just the backing plate (no rivets left either) and the rotor was about the same. Didn't get a pic of the actual hole worn through that rotor that he just put brand new pads on and drove away with... I get not wanting to spend money on a piece of junk, but, it's the only piece of junk he's got to drive to work every day with too. Sad situation there. I'm completely confident he'll be back within 2 weeks asking me to use my tools to replace the rotors AND another set of pads.

 

I would love to say its the worst but its not as bad as my '91 K2500. My step dad bought it almost new and ran it to 235,000 miles on the factory front rotors. One was literally down to the fins. Then there was a friends Plymouth Trailduster. His came off in three pieces. Two necklaces and a hat. Was the joke of the day. This same guy once used red RTV to put a head gasket on.

Val, the theory I was given was that the poly stopped the deflection it the front where the bushing doesn't rotate. I also have poly in the lower side of the shackle. Rubber in the top where the shackle rotates.

Here are a couple videos. The first one shows how much lateral movement the springs have even with poly/rubber. The suspension guys just cant stand having poly anywhere that rotates. So I follow their lead because they are doing the R+D on the same products I have. The first is the set up I have and the second is what I will be doing in the future with Delrin.