Rear trailing arm bushings- premature failure

[Doug Scarrow]

    Last fall I replaced my rear yoke and trailing arm bushings . Now with 410 miles on them the large

  rear trailing arm bushings are done . I contacted Rare Parts the maker and they were defensive and

  wanted me to purchase new ones and if sent the old ones back they,  upon inspection would  reimburse the original seller  (Old Parts) a seller on ebay. Seemed like a lot of hoops to jump through so I inquired at all the

known Cadillac Suppliers and it seems the Rare Parts is the only maker of the RP15606 bushings . Further

 internet searches found this is a common problem. This has led to Dan McNarry and Russ Austin heading up making replacement arms with high tech bushings that do not distort and last. Rare Parts needs to retool and use rubber that will last .  In the mean time DO NOT  purchase trailing arm bushings from them with the

expectation they will last as I assure you they will fail quickly

[1n7b92in0cq10]

Thanks for the replies. I truly love the Cadillac community found on this forum. You guys are simply fantastic! With the custom trailing arms, I was reading they ride the car higher in the rear? I’m working on lowering my caddy 2”. Anyone experience this with the new arms? 

[3ft7bqmb7dryo]

The new trailing arms do not affect the ride height. They were designed and built to the same specs as the originals control arms.

I have them on my car, and have installed them on other cars as well. Ride height is the same.  You could use the 2 inch lowering springs with the new control arms.

[3ft7bqmb7dryo]

Tony, I have the first set, as I was the test car. Not sure of the mileage, but they have been on the car for over a year. The load on the bushings is constant, due to the spring pushing on the control arm.

A bystander can not tell that different control arms are installed, as only the front is viewable, if you get down and look. You will need to get under the car to see the boxed design.

[Kim K Kaiser]

Ive had mine in for year or s .     Couple 3 thousand miles.   So far so good

[0wmawhs0nd6nt]

Hello, Dan McNarry here. I haven't logged in to this site in quite some time. The subject of the poor quality trailing arm bushings seems to have generated quite a lot of "buzz". Just to re-iterate some of what has been discussed, the replacement bushings that I installed were worse than the worn out factory ones they replaced. The originals wore out in a vertical manner as in the round hole in the bushing became an elongated oval oriented vertically. The rubber was still hard however and the axle didn't move as much forward or backward as the replacement ones. The aftermarket replacement ones are terrible. They sag vertically very soon after installation and as the video shows, have lots of fore aft movement. If you watch the video to the end, notice that when I turn into the alley behind my garage (pavement to gravel) the axle does a wild kind of yaw where one side goes forward while the other side goes back. Crazy. They were two years old at that time. 

I saw where one member was complaining about the appearance of the replacement arms that I build. I make no apologies for that as they are designed to be robust and affordable. I sell these in limited numbers and the machine shop costs are high. I only make the bushing sleeves and the spring locator myself, all the other parts are made for me. The reason that I use a machine shop is that they can CNC cut the bushing sleeve holes in the trailing arm tubes very accurately ensuring that all trailing arms have the same length preventing a customers car from dog tracking. When I made the prototype set, even though I carefully laid out the holes, drilled pilot holes and used a slow speed hole saw in my drill press, the two trailing arms came out at different lengths center to center. I had to correct that with a solid hour of hand filing. 

The rest of the parts are water jetted which is particularly helpful in making the parking brake cable tab bracket. They are designed as a solution to a problem that is durable and use inexpensive and easy to replace polyurethane bushing. The bushings can be replaced by the average home mechanic without the use of a press. This is not a big money making enterprise but a service to fellow Cadillac enthusiasts. I don't advertise the fact but I pay the brokerage fee on shipping, the customer just pays the actual shipping charge. As most of my customers are in the US, you don't get penalized by my shipping them from Canada. This is the same for my European customers. The steel used is sourced by the machine shop from the USA as customers will notice by the stamps on the trailing arm tubes. 

I would like to thank those of you who are customers and I would like to thank Russ for being an advocate of these replacement trailing arms. He has been more than patient in his responses to questions and I am very grateful for his support. 

Sincerely,

Dan