Energy Suspension Quality Control

[Miles]

I just purchased the Energy Suspension rear control arm bushing kit. The ID for the metal sleeves for the outer control arm bushings is way too big allowing consideral lateral slop between the sleeve and the spindle pin.

I called Energy Suspension and the technician I talked to said that they know that there is an engineering problem with the metal sleeves and that they are taking steps to correct it.

If you run into this problem just call Energy Suspension and they will send you new metal sleeves.

Cheers

Miles

[kenz240z]

I bought one of their 240Z kits off ebay last spring. I didn't have any problems with the way any of the bushings or sleeves fit.

[kinfish]

I had similar problem with my rear outer poly bushing kit ...... the metal sleeves were actually too small and the spindle pin would not fit. The sleeves missed the final honing operation and deburr. I also called Energy Suspension and they promptly sent a set of replacement sleeves that were sized to provide a .016 diametrically loose fit with the pin (.628 dia).

This is not an Engineering problem ...... the shop is not making the parts to print and hence it is a Quality problem that still isn't fixed.

[Miles]

ES should do a recall of their bushing kits or advertise a fix since their distributors such as VB and MSA may have their shelves stocked with defective parts.

Miles

[ncz]

Hey this is great, that is tomorrow's project(with the same kit) hope it works, haven't busted them out of the box yet!!

[twsutt]

On my ES bushings kit I only received 2 of the 4 sleeves needed for the rear outer control arm bushings. I called ES and they sent me the missing sleeves - about 7 working days later.

[jmortensen]

This has been discussed at length at Hybrid Z. I do not see the problem. When you cinch down the nuts on the end of the spindle pin it locks the sleeve in place. It's never going to move again. From there the inside of the poly bushing rotates around on the sleeve. Theoretically there could be an alignment issue, but I don't think that's a very real problem either, and one might even be able to make a very small adjustment with the slop by loosening the nut, prying the strut one way or the other, then locking the nut back down.

One thing I would recommend to you guys using poly is that you drill and tap the outer end of the control arm so that you can install a zerk fitting. Unfortunately you can't do that on the inside end of the arm because it won't hold any pressure and the grease just leaks all over the place, but on the outside end you can grease it and it should make the suspension move a lot more freely. Here's a pic of mine with the mod, before I cut the end off of the control arm and went to rod ends instead...