is it me or are modern rubber bits rubbish??

[horrace]

so far since i have had horrrace on the road i have replaced the lower trunion rubber dust seals twice and they are perishing again and the steering gaitor perished before i even got him on the road and now since i have replaced it, in less than a year it is jolly well perishing again. is it me or is the modern rubber rubbish (i have a couple of old dust seals and they are fine) or is it the fact that i havent used the pick up? someone said i should spray the rubber with grease then it will stop the elements perishing it????????????

[Declan_Burns]

My advice would be to avoid any repro rubbish if you can source NOS parts. I can fully understand your frustration.
Regards
Declan

[horrace]

so avoid all new ones then? maybe the club has some??

[rayofleamington]

club spares, ebay, Dennis on this site etc... anywhere you can find old unused parts may be a better source than new.

the problem with *'rubber' parts is tha they are black and rubbery. Therefore if the supplier makes the parts with inferior elastomer, 99% filler and the same amount of black pigment they still appear black and rubbery, although they won't last a year.
For modern cars, mot suppliers know that they can't get away with these kind of games and coul get sued if they wee caught deliberately suplying poor quality suspension parts... The guys who supply classic car parts seem to know that te traders rarely even look at the parts, and the end users more often than not don't even demand a refund.

* They weren't actually "rubber" but that's the common name for 'elastomers'. Sorry for being a technical bore - I used to work in automotive hydraulics design so I needed to know my NBRs frm my EPDMs

[alex_holden]

Yes, they are rubbish.

(replaced another steering rack gaiter yesterday - IIRC it lasted about a year on the road)

[horrace]

llrc?? not seen that one before!

[alex_holden]

llrc?? not seen that one before!

If I Recall Correctly.

[xpress]

The above is a shame will bear in mind.

[Peetee]

Yes.
I have had new, useless window seals on three occasions.

[Mogwai]

yep rubbish

I use polyurethane bushes or n.o.s parts where possible & have refitted the 30+ year old trunnion seals back on as they were in better nick than the replacements which had ether swollen or split. Will also be needing to do my screen rubber again soon as well.

[alex_holden]

I've been pondering how difficult it would be to make this kind of thing on a small scale. Assuming you could make the moulds yourself, do you then need a whole factory full of chemicals and machinery to make/cast/cure the rubber?

[polo2k]

why not speak to a small company like powerflex. im sure that they would be interested if they can do multi part moulds

[Declan_Burns]

I've been pondering how difficult it would be to make this kind of thing on a small scale. Assuming you could make the moulds yourself, do you then need a whole factory full of chemicals and machinery to make/cast/cure the rubber?

Read through this. At the end you can see the final result.
http://www.mmoc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=36530
Alex,
Moulding bushes is actually very easy. The tie-bar bushes I make are quite good. They are purposely softer than the repro rubber which is like "Blackpool Rock". I'll be testing them soon when I ged rid of this cold and the weather gets a bit better. The only problem is it is nearly impossible to do it on a small DIY scale at home and avoid tiny air bubbles. My mate Hans Dieter, is working on the eyebolt bushes -metalastic style which are vready for testing. He has a plastics factory and all the injection moulding equipment. The difficult part is making the mould and you have to experiment a bit with the chemicals. I find Weicon Urethane very usable for bushes. They do three grades of shore hardness.
Here's the link.
http://www.weicon.com/en/produkte/2k-kl ... rethan.php

Regards
Declan

[xpress]

hiya. so basically, if my hoses are in good nick, i should leave them as is and not replace for new atm?

[alex_holden]

Yes, the new 'Kevlar reinforced' ones seem to develop cracks within a few months of fitting them.

[alex_holden]

Moulding bushes is actually very easy. The tie-bar bushes I make are quite good. They are purposely softer than the repro rubber which is like "Blackpool Rock". I'll be testing them soon when I ged rid of this cold and the weather gets a bit better.

I was thinking more of seals/gaiters than bushes. I don't know how well PU would work for that.

[xpress]

cheers for that. will be careful with the rubberware.

however i need to change all the bushes for PU, i am sure that will be fun.