914Rubber Rear Trailing Arm Bushings, did I get the wrong ones? Options

[bbrock]

@Mikey914

I bought a set of the rubber rear trailing arm bushings in the 914Rubber GB when they first came out (can't remember when that was). I am just now getting around to installing them and ran into a problem. I did a test fit to see how hard they would be to install and was shocked to find I could easily slide them into the trailing arms by hand AND could slide the pivot shaft in by hand. In fact, I'm not seeing much difference from the polygraphite bushings they are meant to replace. If anything, these fit even looser. I'm wondering I was sent the wrong ones. My understanding is the rubber bushings should be a tight fit and require a press or similar to install as seen in Ian's video. Is there a good way to know what I have? These are stamped "WDG" on the flange side which is different from the stamping on the first set of bushings I bought.

[bbrock]

Okay, I have some pics and numbers. But first, my bushings are packaged exactly like what @Montreal914 shows. That part # matches the poly graphite Daystar bushings 914R also sells but those Daystar bushings are what I pulled out to install these rubber bushings and they are not the same (as Mark already confirmeed).

For grins, I decided to try a full install without press or clamps. I couldn't find my bottle of liquid soap and didn't want to risk getting caught using the wife's froofy stuff so did this WITHOUT LUBE of any kind. The bushings press into the trailing arms with moderately firm pressure with the heel of the hand. I think that is normal. The pivot shaft fits more snugly in the inner side but still didn't fight me as much as I would expect based on reading other's experiences. I was able to drive the shaft into the inner side fairly easily with a rubber deadblow. Again - no lube. There is enough squish on that side that I cannot twist the shaft by hand but judging by the ease it drove in, I couldn't be sure it wouldn't spin under driving conditions.



Now here is the shocking part. Once the shaft was installed, I was able to press the outer bushing in with the shaft in place by hand - no lube. With the outer bushing installed, I could easily spin the bushing by hand. And of course, I can also pull the bushing out by hand.



Now for the ID of the trailing arm, my caliper only reaches about 3/4" into the bore so I can't measure the ID through the whole depth that the bushings reach but I measured across four direction on each bore and here are the numbers:

Inner
1.494"
1.493"
1.479"
1.496"

Outer
1.509"
1.490"
1.514"
1.4985"

So the outer does average a tad larger than the inner which kind of makes sense because I expect that side gets more force to stretch the metal.

I haven't measured or tried to do a full install on the other trailing arm, but based on my tests fitting the bushings one side at a time, I expect it to be the same. The shaft is has a more snug fit in the inner side but not an extraordinary amount of difficulty to try to get it to slide in. The shaft on the outer side is quite loose.