Rear Beam Phosphor Bronze Bushes

[tri_longer 25]

I'm going to show my ignorance here, but as I am planning beam re-build over winter I'm interested in anything that will ensure durability.

 

What is special about phosphor bronze? Do I understand correctly that where you would normally have a roller bear affair you fit this bronze item instead. I understand normal bearings, how does this one work without moving parts?

 

Anyway I would be interested in a set.

[Tom Fenton 1,542]

It is a plain bush as opposed to a bearing, works better with the reciprocating movement we have, and also gives a far greater surface contact, so eliminating the common problem, which is the hard bearing rollers digging into the trailing arm shaft.

[SurGie 54]

Will these also come in 309 beam form ?

 

Also the GSF shafts are not undersized they are all the same size, Miles told me after i posted up

a thread regarding this...

[welshpug 1,657]

these will fit 205 309 306 zx xsara straight off, and some possibly the 106/ax/saxo.

[Ryan 99]

You sure? Ive read they are different im here and Ive been told by people the same thing?!?

 

I bought a pair a couple of weeks ago and they came sealed in pug boxes, same part number and everything.

[pug_ham 244 3 Cars]

Mine were made to be an interfernce fit into the tube so no bearing fit was required. I drilled the tube & bush together & then tapped an M6 grease nipple in so I could keep fresh grease in them.

 

Once fitted all I needed to get the radius arm shaft in was run some wet & dry round the inner surface of the bush which took minutes. Then I spread some grease around the lubrication channels that were machined in & rebuilt the beam before pumping a bit extra grease in on completion.

 

i've heard that the reason gsf can sell arm shafts cheaper than main dealer, is that although they do come in genuine boxes, they are in fact slightly undersize

I seriously doubt this, wouldn't that be dangerous / borderline illegal? "They aren't good enough for our main dealer spares so we'll sell them on for oe aftermarket spares suppliers."

 

I expect the reason they sell them cheaper is because Peugeot have moved across to a different design with the bearings in the arm & are clearing old stock which gsf buy in bulk.

 

While we are talking GSF shafts, anyone got a part number? (309 items please, although 205gti and 309gti are the same are they not?)

The number on the ones I got a few weeks ago is T42604 (pug part number 5176.17) & they are in boxes with the Pug & Citroen logo on.

 

Will these also come in 309 beam form ?

 

Like Mei says, the bearings are the same on 205, 309, ZX & 306 beams for certain.

 

The two images below are the ones I got made ages ago for my 309 beam & have been just for over four years without issue until I remove the beam & went back to all 205 suspension on my GTI.

 

 

 

Graham.

[Guest irn_bru_ce]

i have been getting prices from local CNC places recently for phosphor bronze bushes to replace the bearings on 106/saxo rear beams , and i am aware that the outer 205 bearing is the same id & od , just a bit wider , what is the widest bush that would fit in the 205/309 arms , becasue i plan to make them as wide as possible taking advantage of all the spare space in the 106/saxo radius arms , however if the 205 is close to the size i will get them made that size so they are a universal part

 

the price of the material is sky high , but its a one off purchase as these will never wear out , so far for anything of a decent price they are looking at minimum orders of 50 bushes , i have a spare 106 radius arm and original beam with fresh stubs to give to the machine shop so that they will be an exact fit , the first quote i have is with a lead time of 3 weeks at a cost of £35 per bush , and thats for a bush that is 23mm wide , so would this be of any use to 205/309 beams?

[gti-si 0]

I'm 100% interested in these.

 

Tom, if you manage to get further with these, I'd much prefer an interferance rather than bearing fit, I see it might not be easiest for everyone but I think it'd be the best way. I'll be watching closely anyway.

Edited July 21, 2009 by gti-si

[CosKev 16]

cost of £35 per bush

 

£35 per bush????? So about £170 to do a beam by the time you have bought seals etc

 

If standard bearings have lasted nearly 20 years and over 100k miles you could do two standard bearing rebuilds for the price of the Phosphur Bronze rebuild,any1 think they need 40 years worth out of there beam?!?!?!?

[Tom Fenton 1,542]

To be honest after investigating it I think they are a non starter in terms of cost, the basic PB material is a scandalous cost before any machining time.

 

If anyone does desperately want some doing then its possible, but they would need to be prepared to lay out a lump of money.

[Guest irn_bru_ce]

£35 per bush????? So about £170 to do a beam by the time you have bought seals etc

 

If standard bearings have lasted nearly 20 years and over 100k miles you could do two standard bearing rebuilds for the price of the Phosphur Bronze rebuild,any1 think they need 40 years worth out of there beam?!?!?!?

 

possibly you get 20 years from a 205/309 style setup , but the 106/saxo beams tend not to last that long , my car is 9 years old and this will be the 3rd time its been required to pass an MOT

 

my intention is to have an interferance fit with the radius arm , just put the bushes in the freezer before fitting and they will fit nicley and be tight when they warm back up

 

is there anybody that know what width bush the 205 radius arm could fit , as i will have to get 50 made and want them to be universal so they are easier to sell

[gti-si 0]

Your limited to 27mm on the outer bush, there's no lip on the inner so that wouldn't be a problem.

 

I've got some spun bar at work. I'm going to get onto my supplier in the morning and get a price and on more. I could easily do them for under £35 a bush, but I can't give a price until I have a definite price on the raw materials tomorrow. If it's anything like I'm expecting, I'll post a group buy thread tomorrow and I can have some sets out in 2 weeks if there's enough interest.

 

I've no commitments and plenty of time to machine them. Got a CNC lathe so I should be able to get these out fairly efficiently. I don't mind standing up for a few days .

 

Like I say, I'll look at the costs in depth and get back to this tomorrow

 

It'll be much cheaper with me removing a third party

Edited July 22, 2009 by gti-si

[SurGie 54]

Im interested in a set of two for the outer bearing's, IMO the inner bearing's don't take that much load on them

and should last just as long the the bronze ones.

 

If driving very hard or have track use then the bronze bearings would last a lot longer than PO ones.

 

Worth having at £35 a bush.

[shalmaneser 26]

I love the idea of bushes not bearings in the rear beam - it makes total sense, roller bearings were always a stupid choice for the application.

 

However, although Phos Bronze is a good call, has anyone looked into polymers instead (I'm looking into it now FWIW)? They should be cheaper to buy and machine than bronze and many will be perfectly good for the job.

 

Also, could someone post up the dimensions of the bushes in question, I have some good engineering contacts from my last job and would be happy to look into getting this done too.

 

Cheers,

 

Adam.

[welshpug 1,657]

Si, I'm sure someone posted the listed dimensions of the bearings on here, I'll try and dig it out.

 

As you mentioned the inner bearing isn't limited in space on its location, the width of the bearing surface on the arm shaft is 38mm, where the original bearing is 20mm wide in total, the needle rollers are only 12mm!

 

the inner bearing is roughly 48mm in diameter.

 

Have you looked into oilon bushes that could be modified to suit? I know these are a lot cheaper material wise, but I'm not sure how suitable they would be as some stiction/seizing has been mentioned by Phill (Rippthrough) in cases where the bush has sat unused (i.e if as if the car was in storage) not an issue for WRC cars where I've heard the material is used, but for a 20 year old + pug?.....

[Rippthrough 98]

Have you looked into oilon bushes that could be modified to suit? I know these are a lot cheaper material wise, but I'm not sure how suitable they would be as some stiction/seizing has been mentioned by Phill (Rippthrough) in cases where the bush has sat unused (i.e if as if the car was in storage) not an issue for WRC cars where I've heard the material is used, but for a 20 year old + pug?.....

 

Yeah, they do have a lot of sticktion when stood for a short period - and quite often squeak until the grease flows back around them, we use them on all the trailing arms on the buggy.

We're actually using Nylube bearings, which are an improved grade of Oilon with a lot less friction, but it's harder to get hold of.

[welshpug 1,657]

ears + burning !

[gti-si 0]

I hadn't looked at the oilon, but with many of our cars, even long periods of unuse are pretty common, with them being french and just LOVING it on our driveways in pieces, so the seizure and squeaking is a bit of a turn off for road orientated use.

 

I was looking at Oilite bushes, these are just phosphor bronze but impregnated with oil, so in that way, similar to the Oilon but a much tougher material, and I don't think this would suffer from seizing. That stuff however, is pretty damn expensive... Infact Oilite went into administration I think, so I'm not even sure what's happened there, there will obviously be alternatives.

 

Mei, cheers mate, I've just found a topic from a while back where you listed the OD's of the bearings and some shaft dimension's so I've got a rough idea of the ID's. I'm gonna get hold of a shaft to sort out the tolerances.

 

Regarding width, there's definitely a huge scope for increasing it on the inner, but would that be beneficial? Obviously the outer could benefit from widening, but I'd imagine as Surgie said, there wouldn't be that much load on the inner? I was thinking of something around 25mm each?

 

It'd be interesting to see how many people would replace all 4 rather than just using new inner rollers and outer PB bushes.

 

And 12mm is rediculous! I don't really understand what they were thinking, it's been said before it was more than likely a design in fault to make it serviceable, but surely they could of done better than 12mm! It's an awful lot of load on such a small bearing

Edited July 22, 2009 by gti-si

[pug_ham 244 3 Cars]

i have been getting prices from local CNC places recently for phosphor bronze bushes to replace the bearings, the first quote i have is with a lead time of 3 weeks at a cost of £35 per bush

Crikey, I paid £10 for the two I've got in my 309 beam.

 

Im interested in a set of two for the outer bearing's, IMO the inner bearing's don't take that much load on them and should last just as long the the bronze ones.

Wrong, I've seen inner bearings in worse condition than the outers on some beams even though they don't take as much load, Jimistdt's beam is one I did recently where the radius arm shaft looked fine when it first started to comeout of the tube but the inner was FUBAR.

 

However, although Phos Bronze is a good call, has anyone looked into polymers instead (I'm looking into it now FWIW)? They should be cheaper to buy and machine than bronze and many will be perfectly good for the job.

We're actually using Nylube bearings, which are an improved grade of Oilon with a lot less friction, but it's harder to get hold of.

I was looking into fitting Oilon on my 306 when I recently refurbed the beam but when I did some research I found the spec for Nylube which looked very promising.

 

It'd be interesting to see how many people would replace all 4 rather than just using new inner rollers and outer PB bushes.

I'd replace all four, saves running on dead inner bearings after a few years use, especially if you are running uprated torsion bars because they put a lot more load through the bearings so either PB, Oilon or Nylube bushes would be a great benefit if the wear characteristics are suitable.

 

Graham.

[gti-si 0]

Cheers for the extra info Graham, very helpfull

 

I'm going to have a look into Nylube, but to be fair, I expect I'll go with PB bushes. I think £35 is pretty damn expensive just for phosphor bronze bushes, can even get Oilite bushes for around £32 for a 55mm bush but these would need parting, boring and turning to the correct size, the plus side being they wouldn't need any grease grooves and obviously you could get 2 25mm bushes out of that.

 

The phosphor bronze I can get concast at a pretty good price and if there's enough interest I can get it in a size to suit for minimal machining

 

Very interesting RE the inner bearings, seems strange that the outer's would be fine and the inners be FUBAR but it's definitely something to consider.

 

Does anyone know the ID and OD of the 106/saxo inner bearing?

[pug_ham 244 3 Cars]

Does anyone know the ID and OD of the 106/saxo inner bearing?

Same as the 205 outer bearings afaik just slightly narrower.

 

Some people have used the 205 bearings to rebuild the 106 beams before.

 

Graham.

[gti-si 0]

Same as the 205 outer bearings afaik just slightly narrower.

 

Graham.

 

Ahh, so is it the outer bearing that is different? I know one isn't the same size, just need to find out what it is so I can make 3 patterns

[pug_ham 244 3 Cars]

Ahh, so is it the outer bearing that is different? I know one isn't the same size, just need to find out what it is so I can make 3 patterns

Honestly don't know, I just looked on sevice box but they are a different part number for the inner & outer beaings but the od should be the same as they fit into the radius arm on the 106 not the tube like on the 205.

 

Graham.

[gti-si 0]

Yeah Mei's just notified me about that, so it's just the ID I need. I'll go and buy a bearing from Peugeot

[welshpug 1,657]

they're a lot more expensive than 205 ones, about £12 + vat!

 

the arrangement is a little different and I'm not sure how the wider 205 bearing is used, as there is a spacer that sits between the two bearings, might be that this is trimmed down, I don't know anyone that has worked on 106/saxo beams and done this.