I was expecting a few parts in the mail, mainly the seals and gaskets that I was missing for the valley hose job. Instead, I received some parts I had forgotten I ordered. The front upper ball joints from Welsh, the rear sway bar bushes and front upper wishbone bushes from powerflex as well as the “rubbers” for the rear sway bar links by Energy Suspension from Summit Racing as suggested by Johnken in post 7 from a previous thread. AKA all poly.

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...6/#post2106842

I said, “might as well do this”. This now completes my front suspension, which is now entirely in poly except for the lower shock bush. Has anyone used a universal bush from energy suspension for this?

I started with the rear sway bar bushes and link rubbers. It was easy enough to do. Didn’t even have to jack up the car, just put it on ramps. I drilled the center of the link rubbers to widen the diameter. Took me about two seconds. In less than half an hour, that part of the job was done. It was 8:30 am.

Then I moved to complete the front suspension. It took me the entire day to change 2 ball joints and 4 bushes. That fulcrum bolt was a right PITA. I had to douse it in penetrating oil and hammer away at it to get it to slide out, otherwise it would just spin freely. This happened on both sides. Took me 5 hours to get that done. Once I had it out, and had the balljoint out, I took the wishbones to a nearby shop to have them press out the old balljoint and press in the new ones.

Before installing the new bushes and the wishbones on the Jag, I took the time to take a wire brush and then use sandpaper where the bushes would make their home. There was some corrosion there, I was surprised. Once it was nice and smooth, I cleaned it up with degreaser and then lubed with the supplied Silicone PTFE paste. I was very generous with the lube.

Then I reassembled everything. I finished by 6:00 pm. Took the Jag for a drive and it felt superb. I took it to “that turn” and was blown away by how planted and stable the Jag felt. When I looked at my speedo, I was blown away by how fast I was going. Nearly 55 mph.


And then came trouble....

As I arrived at my gf’s apartment, in the corner of my eye I caught sight of a silver sheen. Dammit, I have a nail in my tire. What’s worse, I bought this set of BFGs 2 months ago.


I think, regarding suspension, I only have the rear lower shock bush and shock mounts pending. The rear beam bushes seem to require dropping the differential. I am not looking forward to that. Do those tend to go bad?

 

The ones in my 97 looked good after 100K mi so I left them alone.

 

Totally agree that a suspension refresh makes the car handle and feel better.

FWIW My rear shock mounts were crumbly on my 99 XK8 at 80k miles. Pic below before the replacement. When I poked it, bits of orange rubber just flaked off. Wasn’t knocking, but wasn’t too far off

 

Finally I have some time to sit down and update. I got back home from advanced auto, the guy patched the tire. It was too late to get the alignment done. Will do that tomorrow.

David, yeah I plan on doing the rear lower shock bush and upper shock mounts soon. I wish Welsh would sell poly for the rear shock mounts as they do for the fronts. I looked at the area today and it didn’t seem like it would be too tough a job. I did see some crumbly bits, but I don’t have any clunks yet. I don’t know where I can disconnect the CATS shocks on the rear end.



RJ, good to know that the rear beam bushes can be postponed.

 

Great job! Thanks for taking the time to post the feedback, I can just imagine the smile on your face as you took that curve.

Do let us know if you find uses for other Energy suspension bushes, like the one you mentioned.

John

 

Sounds like you did great. Just finished the rear bar end link poly bushes yesterday am. Almost as simple as you indicated. Drilled the holes to 31/64" and had to reduce the thickness of 2 poly bushing to 3/8" plus I removed the raised lip on all 4 pieces. We used a belt sander and held the poly bushes with a 1/2 rod placed in the center hole to remove the excess. This resulted in 3-4 threads on the nut showing after compressing the bushings after install. The original thickness bushing did not allow adequate thread to start the nut. The R at end of part # indicates RED, I got the B for BLACK.

 

Weird, I didn’t have that problem with mine. I was able to start the nut with no problem. How many did you use? I only used 1 per link.

 

Well, I think the conclusion here is both obvious and undeniable: poly suspension parts cause tire punctures!

(obviously kidding--well done on the job, GD)

 

We used all 4 bushes. 2 with lip removed and 2 reduced to 3/8" thickness. This enables the left & right suspension arms end links attachment points to be totally in poly. Both upper & lower attachment points to the arm have the poly bushes.

 

Ah, I see. I considered doing this but I didn't have a belt sander available. I tried going at it with a hacksaw and that seemed too dangerous, so I left it with one poly bush on each side. I may return to it in the future. I still have two extra bushes that I can use.



It would seem like it. This year I have replaced 2 sets of tires, the ones on the Jag and the Jeep's as well. On both vehicles I have had multiple small nails and screws find a home in my rubber after getting the new tires. I had been lucky enough so far that the nails and screws landed in the blocks of the tread and were small enough not to cause a puncture that resulted in loss of air, until this last one which did.

 

giandanielxk8 - Hope you weren't too affected by Hurricane Dorian, and I hope our Forum members in Florida are making safe preparations.

For your XKR, it'll never be "Happy Ever After" as there will always be jobs to be done. As our Texan BCP says "This is a car that just keeps giving!"
There's always jobs for next year to plan for.

 

I'm also planning for a rebuild of the rear end at my car, a Xkr 4.0 coupe. Did front end last winter and as soon as the cold and rain sets in, the cat goes into the garage for news bushings at the rear. I plan to replace sub frame bushings also, I don't want to leave any parts that affects the ride quality when I put a lot of work into disassembling the rear end.

My plan is not to use poly bushings since I want to avoid the harshness that might follow, only part I would consider for poly is upper shock mounts but as stated in this thread there doesn't seem to be any such mounts available anyways.

For upper shock mounts, what are your experiences after replacing them? Where did you get them and what is your rating of the item?

 

The urethane front upper shock mounts I got from Welsh Enterprises. I have had a great experience with them. The ride height is bang on at 15.75". They were the first poly upgrade I did to the car. They also brought the camber back to spec. They seem more robust than the stock foam mounts. The feel of those is largely the same of the stock foam mounts. Welsh didn't use an extremely hard durometer for those mounts. In my opinion, they didn't introduce any harshness to the ride. I haven't had them long enough to comment on their durability, only about 8 months and 1800 miles, but others on the forum report that they do last quite a bit longer than aftermarket foam mounts.

 

At the front I'm also using the Welsh poly mounts, agree about the benfits of those. But at the rear, what way to go? What are the alternatives?

 

For the shock mounts at the rear, it’s either OEM replacements or make your own out of your material of choosing such as:

• polyurethane
• hockey puck
• Kitchen cutting board

If you do choose to make your own out of poly, you could consider fabricating a few and selling them as a kit.

Sway bar bushes, rear beam bushes and panhard rod could be obtained from powerflex in poly or you could go with OEM rubber bushes.

Lower shock bushes are only available as OEM replacements rather inexpensively. I don’t know if these should or can be replaced with poly as the lower shock bushes are meant to have movement in more directions than any other bush I’ve encountered on the Jag. Most bushes do either up/down movements and/or compression movements, but the lower shock bushes can move in a circular motion. I wonder if fitting the lower shock bushes as poly would restrict movement enough to the point of causing damage.

 

For my rears, I just went OEM all round (including the upper strut mounts, as I didn't have any confidence getting Poly delivered to me in Bahrain and then having to modify it to fit the rear.

 

Probably I will disassemble everything before I decide which path to go. Most likely most bushings except for top mounts will be OEM, perhaps I will think of poly for sub frame bushings. Anyone tried the latter?