Patrick Light – Suspension Upgrade

After having a lovely day at the Ace Cafe in London on Saturday 7th April 2019, I got chatting to Toby from The Figaro Shop about these new polyurethane bushes that he has developed for the rear trailing arms and I got very interested in how they would make a difference to the drive quality of my Fig (Hattie). So I purchased a set of inserts for £110 which gave me 8 inserts, 8 stainless steel pins and a tube if silicone gel. Now don’t be under any illusion that I am a mechanic because I am not but I looked at the job and thought it was within my capabilities.

To access the arms, firstly I made sure the car was in park, applied the handbrake, jacked up the car and installed my static car stands. Once everything looked safe I crawled underneath the car to spray all the old bolts with WD40 to penetrate the threads and make removing them easier.

After this I went ahead and did one arm at a time. After removing the bolts, the arm came away and I could inspect them more closely. The old rubbers were very worn so I new that this was going to be an improvement anyway. I clamped the arm in a vice and knocked out the old rubbers. Whilst out the car I decided to take the opportunity to repaint the arms. I rubbed down them down and gave them a coat of Primer and then a Black top coat.

After they had dried it was time to fit the new rubbers. To get them to slide into the arm tube The Figaro Shop include a tube of Silicone Gel which is very helpful. I covered one edge of the polyurethane insert and placed the two pieces into a vice and slowly squeezed them together, one this was in place I knocked in the s/s tubing pins and we were ready to re-fit to the car. After a bit of faffing around I managed to get them back into place, excluding paint drying times the whole job took me about 3 hours to complete the 4 arms.

Now time for a test drive, WOW what a difference it has made, the back of the car now feels like it attached to the rest of the car instead of that wobbly feeling at the rear you get when cornering or going over sleeping policemen.

The best £110 I have spent on her and still comes in cheaper than a cup holder!

Pat Light

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