MX-3.com

Macen wrote:No, I used a normal vice/vise. They went in very nice and easy.

Macen, I'm glad you pulled up this old thread. Excellent reading and saved me the effort. I just ordered almost everything Luc has for the MX. I just had an expensive 4 wheel alignment. Is the fitting of these bushings going to affect that alignment - I really hope not.
BTW, I'm not sure if I sent this to you or not, about E-tests, emmissions and the like. Thought you might find this an interesting read.

http://pesn.com/2005/03/17/6900069_Acetone/

John

Thanks for the link!

I really hope that changing the bushings won't affect the alignment. Because I'm going to do an alignment today, and I still have the driverside left to change. I will ask the guys that will do the alignment.

EDIT: I heard them! They do squeak. It's not much at all. I can live with that.
Oh, and changing the bushings will affect the alignment. The guys told me that it's best to do the alignment after you have changed them.

Macen wrote:Oh, and changing the bushings will affect the alignment. The guys told me that it's best to do the alignment after you have changed them.

No problem for the link. BTW, my mistake, I should thank DJs-MX3 for reviving the lthread. How much of a change are we looking at? Did they elude to how much or how significant?

A little tip when pressing the bushing for the loose rear tin-plate, is to not press it fully in. It will be much easier fitting it to the chassis if it's only ~95% pressed in.
I pressed it it fully at the passenger side, and had a lot of trouble fitting the little thing on the tin-plate to the chassis.
On the driver side I pressed it in ~95%, and had no problem at all.

One new picture added in my previous post.

I made my own bushings out of delrin. The material is very close to the nylatron. I have to grease mine about every 6-8 months with water proof marine trailer grease or they squeek like crazy all the time. Regular grease got washed out very quickly.

I don't really like the srd bushings. There needs to be a metal sleeve that runs down the center to take the load of the bolt. If you don't have that you end up compressing the flange of the bushing up against the subframe mounting points. This causes the suspension to bind. Maybe not enough that most people care but I just don't like it.

Their is a special Polyurethane grease that your supposed to use when installing any poly bushings, to eliminate all squeaking. you get it with some swaybar kits for other cars. i cant rember the name but if i do ill post it.

TsiMiata: Do you mean that you press the bushings out and re-grease them, or do you mean that you only grease the hole that the bolts go through?

I loosened my passenger side bolts, and the squeak was gone. So far I'm satisfied with the SRD ones. I hope that the nylatron will be hard enough to handle the bolts.

Well i forgot that i had writen this post, however in the meantime i bought the kit and installed it some time ago..

Wish i hadent though, cause either they squeak klonk or something else, and i havent had a lot of time to play around with the car and thats whats bugs me the most that its not enough just installing theese but you have to go under the car several times tightening and losening until you find a combo that dont squeak or clonk

Have found out one thing though theres a difference between the US or CA controlarms and the European according to the pics of the install sent by SRD... the shoulder on the European controlarm has a smaller diameter than on the picture, meaning the shoulder has less area to press on and thereby it can work itself into the rear bushing..

To fix this problem i have gotten a set of SS shims made to put inbetween the controlarms shoulder and the rear bushing, theyre going in soon..

But if they keep screaching and klonking around after this im going to throw theese F..kers out and get some Mazdaspeedbushings instead!
They allso have metal sleeves in them like the OEM and not missing out as on the SRD ones

Well... so far I'm very happy with my bushings from SRD. Sure, they squeak if they are tightened too much. But it's not hard at all to release the nuts just a little bit.

If your buying these and worried about them squeeking, then your just not buying them for the right reasons. I've got 'em, they squeek like mad, but I LOVE 'em. Really helped the feel of the car. If you want a nice comfortable quiet ride, keep your oem bushings. If your willing to put up with some squeeking to handle better, then buy these......... and I dunno how i'd feel hopping into somebody's car knowing they loosened the bolts holding their control arms in........ there are torque specs on parts for a reason, going above and especially below these, your asking for trouble.

torquespecs yeah but since the fitment of theese bushings isnt that good youll have to tighten them a lot over spec to remove clonking noises from excess play, then if they start to squeak theyre too tight and you have to loosen them again.. The guy from SRD advised this..

Anyway only fools would go under the minimum torquespecs of the manual and dont think anyone here said anything about doing that

Well I got everything SRD has for the MX3 except for the Ebrake handel. Anyway when first installed thay realy didnt have much sound at all but now I got the clunk from hell. Srd recomends tighting bolts after a few days of driving as the bushing need to be broken in. I hope this does the trick. If this help I'll let you guys know suppose to go back in a day or so to retighten.

Mine squeak a lot now. A bit annoying, but I will have to live with it.
Would be nice if we can find a grease that last and prevents the squeaking. Though I'm not that interested in removing them again and then do a new alignment.

nice pics Macen.... I'd like to see your install, but can't see through the red Xs

Macen wrote:Mine squeak a lot now. A bit annoying, but I will have to live with it.
Would be nice if we can find a grease that last and prevents the squeaking. Though I'm not that interested in removing them again and then do a new alignment.

Please tell me that I don't need to get another alignment after I put mine in.