Girling Dampers and the bushings

[JeffMoore64]

Evening again Gents,

So I've read all about the the bushings and needing a installation kit to get them on. My question is, How does one remove and install the Girling damper and the two link arms to the car?

Here is how I would remove it:

Unbolt the Girling Damper, Loosen the bolt/pin that is attached to the frame, then pull the whole thing off.

But if you try and reverse the process, it seems like you would need to press fit the bolt/pin that mounts to the frame when you replace the bushing, then screw it to the frame. But then the bolt could not be tightened as it would tighten to the point where it would spin.

How any of this make sense?

Any thoughts on proper way to disassemble and reassemble the damper and linkages to the frame?

TIA
Jeff

[SteveW]

Strangely enough, the pin doesn't seem to spin when you bolt it up (at least, mine didn't). I guess that there is enough friction through the bush for nut to be tightened to the point where the clamping force between the convex and concave mating faces takes over.

By the way, the bush installation kits seem to be very expensive for what they are. I got my bushes in by

a) finding a socket with the same diameter as the hole where the bush goes
b) putting a thin nut and washer on a threaded bar and then sliding it through to the inside of the socket, followed by the bush (so that the bush was sitting inside of the socket to prevent it distorting when pressed into the arm).
c) sliding the link arm over the threaded bar so that it sat against the bush
d) tightening a nut and large washer onto the other end of the bar so that it pressed against the link arm, and gradually pulled the bush into place

Once the bush is in, the next arm (or the pin) can be pressed through the bush in a vice

Note that it helped to put a little washing up liquid on the bush to ease progress.

I hope that that makes sense, I should really have taken a photo whilst I was doing it

[frenchblatter]

Jeff,

If it's any help look at http://www.lotus7news.co.uk/MG-TC-HOME.htm and click on Tech Index. There's a lot of info on the shockers.

I fitted the bushes by drawing them through with a piece of threaded rod, washers and nuts. However, I made some bushes from Nylon rod and pressed these in. Much easier to assemble than the rubber ones.