Hey gang,
I did find a thread or 2 about the rebel racing rear trailing arm bushings but never heard what holds the sleeve in the actual trailing arm...and of course no instructions were incl. I can call Clint on Monday of course but was hoping someone could pass along some install tips so I can wrap this up this weekend.

Are these supposed to be JB welded like the fronts? I'm not optimistic JB would hold in this area?

Any help appreciated!
Andrew

Yep, they are bonded in with JB weld or your preferred two part epoxy. I've been running these without issue for over a year now. If you are really concerned, drill a few small pilot holes in the trailer arm to let the epoxy seep into. As long as the arm is free of grease , the jb weld will bond.

On mine, the sleeves are too small in diameter and fall right out of the trailing arms. Clint said he would send shims but never has. He said to drill some holes in the trailing arm, shim the sleeves, center them then mig weld the 2-3 holes that were drilled into the ends of the control arm tubes to permanently attach the sleeves to the control arms. I bought the rear control arm bushing kit a year and a half ago and it's still not installed. The other problem I had was one of the control arm axle rods will not fit into the sleeve while the other one fit nice and tight. The two axle rods are different diameters. This product now comes with shims but I have not been able to get them to send me a set. Clint is a great guy to speak with on the phone if you can reach him but absolutely refuses to follow up with me. I believe including the shims is an improvement but ideally it should come with new axle rods like the ones from Tangerine and Elephant. It would increase the cost but would make these easy to install. It should not be up the the buyer to figure out how to re-engineer this product to make it work.

Did your bushing kit come with shims?

My steel sleeves slid in and out of my trailing arms easily as well. It is more logical to make them nominally smaller to allow for the massive variations in both diameter roundness due to the welding that occurred at the factory during manufacturing of the trailing arms.

Shmming around the sleeve is unnecessary. These are meant to be bonded in to the trailing arm with a 2 part epoxy, not remotely reliant upon a metallic interference fit. We liquid shim / bond aerospace components all day long without issue. (Composite Wing skin to composite wing root/ribs)

If you don't trust JB Weld, look into Loctite-Henkel products from aircraft spruce. Assuming you properly clean both the sleeve and the trailing arm, it's not going anywhere.

No re-engineering necessary to make these work. They aren't simple bolt on parts however, but I haven't found many parts on a 914 that are purchased in the aftermarket that are a direct bolt on fit. Hell, the poly-graphite trailing arm bushings take a ton a work to fit properly with the pivot shafts. No engineering work, just time and effort.....

My kit came with shim washers to set the free play of the arm once installed in the car. No other shims were needed.

Sorry if this response seemed snarky.. I installed these in an afternoon, and after a 36 hour cure time, I installed them on the car, and had everything aligned in a few hours.. I currently have 18,000 miles on them.

Thanks for the reply Ethan...thats the info I needed. When searching I found conflicting information as to whether these were bonded or not so thanks for the help.

Lonewolf: my kit did come with the shims for the side to side fitting. My pivot shafts were in excellent shape (fortunately) and after placing them in the freezer and the teflon tubes near the heater everything slid together easily. My buddys stock rear bushings were compromised allowing water in so his pivot shafts were toast. He did the elephant kit and it was definately an easier install (maybe since instructions are incl )

I also have Rebels rear trailing arm bushings waiting for time & attention. They told me to drill a couple holes on either side and SPOT WELD them in place. That is what I intend to do...Clint had mentioned that they tried to produce the diameter to meet the happy medium. When I say spot drill and spot weld - that was the trailing arm with the sleeve inserted, obviously. My concern was damaging the bearing material with the welding but they are saying it will not. Hmm???

Tony

The pivot tube varies widely from part to part. Makes producing these things a real PITA.

My concern was damaging the bearing material with the welding but they are saying it will not. Hmm???

Tony
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as long as your bearing is not between your ground and the spot your welding it will be ok...if the bearing is in between your ground and weld it will arc the bearing and cause pitting on the surfaces of the bearing and it will soon fail
Mike