Timing Bushings

[8driann]

So I hear people mentioning to time my bushings but I only see that on the threads that mention 1.4 springs and up. I bought 1.25 BMR springs from phastek and on the two installation videos that’s I’ve watched from phastek on YouTube, they literally just take off the original springs and throw on the new ones without mentioning anything about timing them. Do I need to do that? If so, how is it done?


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[sixty9fordkiller]

timing bushings needs to be done with the weight of the car on the suspension. do not fully tighten them with the car in the air. with the new bushings loosly tighteded, ive lowered the car onto ramps. then get under it and tighten away fully

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[KillboyPowerhead]

Timing the bushings should always be done when changing ride height, higher or lower. Tightening the bolts when the arms aren't at their normal ride-height angles will create extra stress/tension on the bushings, reducing their life and making handling worse (extra tension creates more spring force when the arms move). As mentioned, the bolts should be loose with the weight of the car off the springs, and then tightened with the weight on the springs.

Easiest to have the alignment tech do this when getting an alignment, but if you want to do it yourself you can jack the car up and lower onto wood blocks or something tall enough so that you can crawl under there and get to each of the bolts. Another option, albeit not as accurate, is to jack up the knuckle to the normal ride height and tighten everything down - the only issue is that you won't know the normal ride height, but if you know the drop (advertised drop of springs) you can get pretty close, just measure the distance from the centre of the wheel to the fender before installing the springs, with the car on the ground, and subtract the advertised drop, then when tightening everything jack up the knuckle so the centre of the axle/hub is at this distance from the fender. Harder to do this with coilovers since you adjust the height yourself, plus the springs rates will be different than factory, so you'll have to take a bit of a guess based on spring rates and length of coilover vs factory strut.

[8driann]

Originally Posted by KillboyPowerhead

Timing the bushings should always be done when changing ride height, higher or lower. Tightening the bolts when the arms aren't at their normal ride-height angles will create extra stress/tension on the bushings, reducing their life and making handling worse (extra tension creates more spring force when the arms move). As mentioned, the bolts should be loose with the weight of the car off the springs, and then tightened with the weight on the springs.

Easiest to have the alignment tech do this when getting an alignment, but if you want to do it yourself you can jack the car up and lower onto wood blocks or something tall enough so that you can crawl under there and get to each of the bolts. Another option, albeit not as accurate, is to jack up the knuckle to the normal ride height and tighten everything down - the only issue is that you won't know the normal ride height, but if you know the drop (advertised drop of springs) you can get pretty close, just measure the distance from the centre of the wheel to the fender before installing the springs, with the car on the ground, and subtract the advertised drop, then when tightening everything jack up the knuckle so the centre of the axle/hub is at this distance from the fender. Harder to do this with coilovers since you adjust the height yourself, plus the springs rates will be different than factory, so you'll have to take a bit of a guess based on spring rates and length of coilover vs factory strut.

I honestly thought I was going to need like an extra fancy tool but if all I have to do is to put the bolts on and not tighten all the way till it’s on the ground then I’ll do that. And when referring to the bolts we are referring to every single bolt that hast come off for the installation right? Or is it specific ones?

[KillboyPowerhead]

Basically any bushing on a control arm except for the front-most bushing of the rear upper control arm:

Front
Radius rod, inner (inner = at subframe);
Lower control arm, inner.

Rear
Lower control arm, inner;
Upper control arm, inner (the rear-most bushing; the other one between this bushing and the knuckle doesn't need to be touched; these ones are tricky to get to but doable - try the closed-end of a box wrench);
Toe link, inner and outer (outer = at the knuckle; if you have the 1LE/ZL1/Z28 links you don't need to time these as they're spherical and not rubber);
Trailing arm, inner and outer;
Shock mount on the lower control arm.

So nine total on either side. Also keep in mind that all of these bolts are torque-to-yield and are technically one-time use, but unless you've loosened and tightened these bolts a few times I wouldn't worry about it (I've never replaced a bolt yet - figure I will when I need to replace the arms due to spent bushings/ball joints). JusticePete - a Camaro suspension guru who's sadly disappeared from this forum - always suggested using the German torque spec of "gudentight" when tightening these bolts - meaning, throw on some blue loctite, and tighten each bolt gudentight (good and tight) - a grunt or two and you're good. If replacing the bolts you can use the factory torque specs which require a torque angle gauge.

If doing this in your driveway, before tightening the bolts, with the weight of the car on the springs, "jounce" the car a few times (push down on the front and rear a few times to kind of jiggle the bushings into place). Also try to get the car as level all around as possible.

[8driann]

Originally Posted by KillboyPowerhead

Basically any bushing on a control arm except for the front-most bushing of the rear upper control arm:

Front
Radius rod, inner (inner = at subframe);
Lower control arm, inner.

Rear
Lower control arm, inner;
Upper control arm, inner (the rear-most bushing; the other one between this bushing and the knuckle doesn't need to be touched; these ones are tricky to get to but doable - try the closed-end of a box wrench);
Toe link, inner and outer (outer = at the knuckle; if you have the 1LE/ZL1/Z28 links you don't need to time these as they're spherical and not rubber);
Trailing arm, inner and outer;
Shock mount on the lower control arm.

So nine total on either side. Also keep in mind that all of these bolts are torque-to-yield and are technically one-time use, but unless you've loosened and tightened these bolts a few times I wouldn't worry about it (I've never replaced a bolt yet - figure I will when I need to replace the arms due to spent bushings/ball joints). JusticePete - a Camaro suspension guru who's sadly disappeared from this forum - always suggested using the German torque spec of "gudentight" when tightening these bolts - meaning, throw on some blue loctite, and tighten each bolt gudentight (good and tight) - a grunt or two and you're good. If replacing the bolts you can use the factory torque specs which require a torque angle gauge.

If doing this in your driveway, before tightening the bolts, with the weight of the car on the springs, "jounce" the car a few times (push down on the front and rear a few times to kind of jiggle the bushings into place). Also try to get the car as level all around as possible.

Oh ok. Yeah I will be doing this in my driveway and for sure I’ll be use the gudentight technique as I’m reusing the same bolts. Thank you for all the info, really helps.


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[SS 310H55A]

Originally Posted by KillboyPowerhead

Also keep in mind that all of these bolts are torque-to-yield and are technically one-time use,

I got into a discussion about this on another thread here. I thought the same until recently. The bolts actually aren’t TTY. They use angular torque but they’re not torque to yield. There is actually a difference. The shop manual also does not advise anything about the suspension bolts needing to be replaced when you swap out control arms.

[KillboyPowerhead]

Originally Posted by SS 310H55A

I got into a discussion about this on another thread here. I thought the same until recently. The bolts actually aren’t TTY. They use angular torque but they’re not torque to yield. There is actually a difference. The shop manual also does not advise anything about the suspension bolts needing to be replaced when you swap out control arms.

I see... This has been discussed so many times on here and everyone seemed to be under the impression that they were one-time use - or at least no one said otherwise/corrected anyone who did say so. Good to know!

With that said, if you reuse the bolts after being yielded, and depending on what you torque them to if reusing, you could be risking the bolt failing: https://www.camaro5.com/forums/showt...=364972&page=2 (posts 23 to 25). Again, I've loosened and retightened many of the suspension bolts and few times with no issues.

[gtstorey]

Originally Posted by KillboyPowerhead

I see... This has been discussed so many times on here and everyone seemed to be under the impression that they were one-time use - or at least no one said otherwise/corrected anyone who did say so. Good to know!

I have pretty much stopped suggesting that just because a bolt might call for angular torque that it might not be torque to yield because it's always followed up with all of the predictions of death and destruction if bolts are not replaced. For the most part, none of really know which bolts are torque to yield, other than the head bolts. I don't think even the recommendation for replacement in the factory repair manual means that it is torque to yield, it might be more to do with the factory applied locking compound.