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Question regarding NOS vs New rear leaf spring bushings

shortsguy1

Jedi Hopeful
Offline
Hello-
Thanks everyone for your help with my radiator pressure cap question. I was hoping I could bug everyone for one more piece of advice.

You may recall my thread a while ago where I was asking for advice on vendors of high quality leaf springs:
https://www.britishcarforum.com/bcf...ent-experiences-with-rear-leaf-spring-vendors

In the end, I was able to buy new, but very old leaf springs via Ebay. They were sold by Moss (as they have a Moss part number on them), but were Made in England and are identical in appearance to the current rear leaf springs sold by Denis Welch. I don't know their exact age, but Moss has been selling India-made springs for a while now, so my "new" springs must be pretty old.

I was hoping to get advice on replacing or keeping the bushing that comes with those springs. It appears to be two sleeves of metal separated by a thin (maybe 1/8") of rubber. Here is a picture of the part in question:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/AUSTIN-HEALEY-3000-MAIN-LEAF-SPRING-BUSH-SPRING-EYE-BUSHES-X4-/301253194341

So if the springs I bought are 20 years old (but unused), would you recommend replacing this bushing before I install them? I have had bad luck with modern rubber on many parts of my old Mercedes, and I wasn't sure if modern Healey rubber parts also suffer quality issues. Perhaps 20 year old rubber from England is better than brand new rubber from CountryX. It certainly seems fine in the NOS springs, but I cannot really load them in my living room like they will be loaded on a car.

I understand the recommendation is to replace as many rubber parts as possible when doing this sort of work, but in my case, it wasn't clear what is the best solution.

Is this bushing a common failure location where the rubber tears/collapses/degrades? If that part is relatively robust, I will probably just stick with the bushings that arrived in the NOS springs. Thanks for your advice.
 
Spring bushings are a common failure item where the rubber tears/collapses/degrades.

Additionally, I just would not trust 20 year old rubber it could be as hard as nails.:encouragement:
 
Spring bushings are a common failure item where the rubber tears/collapses/degrades.

Additionally, I just would not trust 20 year old rubber it could be as hard as nails.:encouragement:
I totally agree! Been there done that with NOS rubber parts.
 
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