Chris Zychski wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:
RJT>Can anybody suggest other places where I might look for such stuff?
RTJ>I don't think that it's gonna pay to look in a junkyard since
RJT>what's there is likely to be in as bad condition as what I'm trying
RJT>to replace...
 CZ> Any good machine shop should be able to shim those bushings for 
 CZ> a reasonable price.
Machine shop?  But they're made out of rubber!
 CZ> I wouldn't worry much about junk- yard replacement - those are 
 CZ> not (normally) high-wear items. And any year-model Monaco 
 CZ> (except convertible) will work - they were all the same.
How late did they use that setup?  That's the thing,  we're talking about 
rubber here that's 20 years old,  and I don't know that what I end up with is 
going to be in much better shape.
 CZ> Pesonally I would swap the whole subframe unit.
Why?
 CZ> What makes me wonder is why those bushings wore - maybe some 
 CZ> frame distortion due to a wreck?  Have you checked frame 
 CZ> alignment/trueness?
They spent about three solid hours trying to align that car,  and it gave 
them a lot of trouble.  This was done after I'd found that the upper control 
arm bushings on one side were shot,  and replace them.  Then I felt that it 
wasn't right and took it back,  and they spent another hour on it.  It still 
doesn't handle right,  pulls to one side,  but they tell me that the 
alignment is okay and that all of the front end linkage parts are tight.
Wear isn't the case here,  the rubber is so old it's rotting away.  In the 
case of the rear one on the right side,  the bottom bushing is about half 
_gone_,  I can stick the ends of my fingers in there.  I took notice of that 
when I was under the car changing the oil a few weeks back.
This car has 171,000 miles on it,  and I've taken it on all sorts of dirt 
roads,  over railroad tracks a couple of times a day to and from work,  and 
so forth,  which probably accounts for it.  Same sort of thing with the strut 
bushing I ended up changing on this Ford truck I have here (also a '77,  
coincidentally).
Right now I'm working on this Dodge 3/4 ton truck,  and I aim to have just 
about every bit of rubber on that thing changed out before I try to put it on 
the road.  At the moment there's no body parts forward of the windshield,  
nor a motor in it,  so it's pretty easy to see what shape stuff is in,  and 
the upper control arm bushings there are pretty well rotted,  too.  I guess 
it's the rubber,  the air,  pollutants,  whatever.  A friend of mine says 
that it's exposure to ozone.  I have no idea,  but this stuff does rot after 
so many years...
email: roy.j.tellason%tanstaaf@frackit.com 
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