Spherical Bushings for GM A-Body Trailing Arms
Speedway Motors employee Steve upgraded the trailing arms on his 1976 Chevrolet Laguna with some spherical bushings.
The secret to a great working suspension is making sure that there's nothing binding in it. That's where the Speedway Motors 1973-1988 GM Midsize Rear Control Arm Spherical Bushings (P/N 916-34048) come in. They replace the old, hard rubber bushings with a spherical bearing that eliminates any binding in your rear suspension, and is superior to new rubber or polyurethane bushings.
Each one of the spherical bushings will fit on each end of Speedway Motors 1973-1988 GM Trailing Arms Part Numbers 916-34051 (1973-1977) and 916-34055 (1978-1988), and you'll need a quantity of six of these to outfit a set of GM trailing arms.
The GM trailing arm spherical bushings are made up of a bushing sleeve with a spherical bearing inside, 2 spherical bearing spacers, and 2 rubber rings that provide stability to the bushing assembly, as well as keeping dirt and moisture out of the bearing while seeming “stock appearing” to a casual inspection.
While installation is very straight forward and easy to do, unless you have a hydraulic press you'll need to take them somewhere and have someone press them in for you. I had a large vise and thought that I could use it to install them, but as I quickly found out, the vise, and myself weren't up to the task. The good thing about using the vise is that you can at least get the bushing started in the arms. The arms have a step machined into them and the bushings have a mirror image of that step machined into the outside shell, so they'll only go in one way.
After pressing the bushings in to the arms, I sprayed the bearing liberally with a moisture displacing lubricant. After spraying them, rotate the bearing within the housing to spread the lubricant throughout the bushing assembly and then install the bearing spacers followed by the rubber rings. After everything is all pressed in, lubricated, and sealed up, your trailing arms are ready to be installed in your 1973-1988 GM A/G Body Car.
