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Post by silverbullet on Sept 19, 2022 22:43:09 GMT
My 73 silverbullets are celebrating 50 years this fall and I thought I'd freshen them up for this milestone year. I took the ski shocks out to paint but had to cut them out with sawzall as the pins were rusted tight into thei steel sleeved rubber bushings. The shocks are painted now but I still haven't found replacement bushings for them. Has anyone found a source or suitable alternative for these that they can point me to?
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Post by greenandgold on Sept 21, 2022 0:18:45 GMT
Around 2008 went on a search for suitable replacement ski shock bushings…..never found anything that would work. Decided to machine these. Used both nylon 66 and something called Nylatron GS; both are moly infused nylon. They a easy to turn on a lathe have a interesting look to them; fits the Silver Bullet theme. Only real issue, besides not looking OEM, are so called identical shocks often have varied ID eye dimensions---not precision formed items. As I wanted a tight interference fit, wound up matching individual bushing to each eyelet, some varied by as much as .025 in. If you don’t have a lathe, or a friend that does, pay a local community college (or maybe high school) that has a machining curriculum a visit. Often you provide the material and they use the project to train. Good luck    |
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Post by silverbullet on Sept 25, 2022 17:52:57 GMT
Interesting idea. Thanks for posting the pictures too. I looked up sources for this material while several came up from the USA in my search, the shipping to Canada exceeds the cost of the raw material given the small quantity I need. But your suggestion has inspired another thought. I have a block of black UHMW plastic here and I have a friend with a lathe so I will chat him up and see if we can't turn some bushes from it. Good tip about handing the shocks to him and making each one to fit individually else I might have asked him to simply make me 4 bushes and find only 1 fits. I was also mulling over finding a piece of rubber heater/coolant hose of 7/8 to 1" O.D. and see if I could fashion a bush from that. FWIW I have used the black UHMW plastic as spacer blocks between ski saddle and leaf springs in an effort to improve steering on old Olys. Works well but looks too "factory", it doesn't draw as much comment as the blocks of oak my dad used to use.
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