Problem with Elephant Poly Bronze Front Bushings, Whipped it! Now swinging freely! Options

[bobhasissues]

Installed the poly bronze front bushings last spring. They were binding. To alleviate some of the binding I bought, from McMaster Carr, spherical washers for the frontside mounts. This helped quite a lot, but there was still a bit of binding. I figured I also needed spherical washers on the backside mounts as well to get these things to rotate without binding. My plan was to replicate the $200 Elephant backside mounts by machining enough material off the top and bottom sides of the backside mounts to accommodate spherical washers. I began this project today.
When I started to take the control arms off the car, every one the base (concave) sides of the washers fell off in pieces. I couldn't believe it. When I assembled this stuff I only gave them a good snug down with a socket wrench, no over tightening.
I do not want to continue this project and modify the backside mounts if the conical washers cannot hold up.
These are the washers I bought for the front mounts, same manufacturer for the backs, just a larger size.

I bought case hardened steel rather than stainless due to the 12 sets x $15 per set price difference.
Has anyone had a similar experience? Any advise to help me get this resolved will be greatly appreciated.

[tradisrad]

I made my own "low friction" mounts and I bought my washers from Fastenal. I will check on them tomorrow and see if they are in as bad of shape as yours; I know they have some rust on them in the first year...
If you are still having binding issues then you may want to modify the rear A-arm mounts.
If I recall correctly it took a lot of fiddling until I was happy with the movement of the arms. also remember the A-arm only travels so much and you dont need to worry about binding in the areas of non travel. I can search for pictures of my install if it will help you.

[bobhasissues]

I made my own "low friction" mounts and I bought my washers from Fastenal. I will check on them tomorrow and see if they are in as bad of shape as yours; I know they have some rust on them in the first year...
If you are still having binding issues then you may want to modify the rear A-arm mounts.
If I recall correctly it took a lot of fiddling until I was happy with the movement of the arms. also remember the A-arm only travels so much and you dont need to worry about binding in the areas of non travel. I can search for pictures of my install if it will help you.

Thanks Triadsrad,
You sent photos of your Elephant based modified rears last spring when I first posted about the binding problem. My plan was to do the same mod to the rears that you did (but I stripped and painted the car before getting back to this). I actually moved ahead today and made the mods. Got them swinging freely now. Before the modification, the rear mounts were definitely being forced out of alignment when tightened. Glad you gave me the tip on the mods and saved me $200.

Regarding the broken washers:
I did notice, when looking back at Elephant's site, the outside diameter of the washers I bought from McMaster Carr are not as large as the ones that Elephant provides with their kit. The washers I ordered were based upon the bolt sizes. Elephant is either using the next bolt size up or has found a manufacturer that makes a beefier set. Also, I neglected to use a flat washer between the bolt head and the conical base when I installed them which may have caused the bases to break. I did use flat washers this time and am hoping this will resolve that problem. If not, I'll have to try another supplier for the spherical washers. But for now all is good.

Thanks everyone.