Originally posted by Andy Bettencourt@Jan 4 2006, 05:39 PM
I have made my point and don't need to reiterate it over and over. Frankly, you guys are getting way too technical for me now.

A spherical bearing as a bushing (where one did not exist prior) is not simply a 'change in material'. I can't see how anyone could argue that.
Yeah but...

...this isn't a yes-no, same-different kind of question. Your point - which is reasonable, certainly - requires as its basis an argument that there is a DEGREE of "differentness" that is no longer OK. Isn't a bushing that has three parts like the one in the pic above (metal, urethane, metal) a different design than a one-piece rubber thingie? If the flanges that keep the soft bit inside the bracket are thicker, is it different? Where is the line?



^^^ This is a stock rear, inboard "bushing" from my front A arm. First, would you consider this a bushing? How about if we recognize that to work, it MUST flex such that the axis of the inner and outer holes are no longer aligned - in direct violation of the only purpose in the GCR definition. Am I allowed to even change it? Or, since it isn't a "bushing" by the GCR, does IIDSYCYC kick in?



^^^ This is the front, inboard bushing for the front A-arm - same questions. If the replacement piece doesn't have these sexy curves, is it illegal?

Now, I haven't extended the questions above to explicitly ask about the things that we call "spherical bearings" rather than bushings. Is the different name enough to make them different for the purposes of this rule? What if their designs are radically different but they function in an identical fashion, in terms of axes of motion for example, to the OE parts?

I honestly cannot define a place in the continuum between "stock" and "spherical" that leaps out at me as being a natural, bright line between OK and not OK, that isn't arbitrary and based on what I want or don't want, rather than on intellectual honesty.

K

Edit - all three of these things are called "bushings" in the parts catalogs.

Edit edit - I had a sway bar bushing in the examples, which makes no sense since they are free under a different rule.