Going to rebuild my 72 dart front end with 73 upper control arms and spindles because I am using the scarebird disk kit...anyway this car will be a driver and not a road racer....what I am looking for is good handling and a smooth driver....but just want to know if polygraphite is worth the hassle?

Thanks....thats what I was hoping for...make it alot easier....and yes I have power steering....

road car, rubber all the way. Poly sway bar ends OK but poly suspension bushings, you'll tire of them very quickly, either from the harsh ride or the squeaking.

The poly lower control arm bushings are hit or miss, from my experiance. Most of the time people just press them in without a hydraulic press.

But others, myself, have had a tough time getting them to slide in. I think it's because the poly LCA bushing use the old LCA rubber bushing shells and there is some thickness variation per brands. And sometimes the shell inside the LCA can get out of round because of gashes from people chisling out old rubber bushing out of thier LCA.

Also the poly strut rod bushings are thicker than stock. And with poly LCA bushings the strut rod is what holds the poly LCA bushings against the K-frame. So shaving 3/16 off the poly strut bushings is helpful.

Why are you changing upper control arm and spindle? I was under the impression the scarebird kit didn't require that?

I was going to start a new thread about this today or tomorrow, regarding what happened to my new POLY suspension....but I'm happy (or sad) to share my thoughts with you now.

As a hobby, I restore several classics each year (old trucks & muscles, etc). I always tear down and rebuild the suspension by sand blasting the metal, paint or powder coat, then in with the rubber... I usually go with the OEM rubber, but I have done 2 POLY kits from PST; the first was put on my 71 Challenger 383 car (2 years ago), and it went in very smooth (but I sold it after a few months and never inspected it after putting a few miles on it.

The most recent POLY kit from PST was put on my 68 Corvette 427 4-speed (bad to the bone).
Again the kit went in as expected (pretty easy), but here's the horror Follow the timeline:

-Installed a complete front and rear POLY kit.
-Once the vette was back on the road, I drove it home (about 10 miles from my shop).
-It sat there about 2 weeks before I drove it to our local (retired) air force base (Perrin Field) where I raced it in our "pure stock drag race day". (It's about 15 miles from my house to the the air stirp - 30 mile round trip)
-Once I drove it home (it drove fine) It sat in my garage a few weeks until (yesterday) when I drove it to the alignment shop (5 miles) to get aligned. (This shop has a very good reputation for more than 20 years and I know the mechanic - nothing shady here....it's the kind of place where you can drop off your car and hand around and chat as long as you dont get in his way). He called me after 30 minutes ans said "my front suspension is shot and needs replaced"

Upon going back to his shop and seeing it for myself, it appears that in his own words, "He sees it all the time". He said this is nothing new, he sees the new POLY bushings get eat up after only a few hundred (sometimes) less miles.

It looks like the POLY material is good, and hasn't been eaten up by solvents, it's still looks good etc... but due to the hard metal sleeve in the middle that is rotating back and forth against the "very hard" poly material...it's eating away at the Poly and resulting in MAJOR slop in the suspension.

After less than 100 miles, I can vouch for the fact that it is completely chewed up and needs replaced.

What makes it worse is that he has seen it several times...POLY is too hard and when something has to go....The sleeve eats into the POLY material where the OEM Rubber was more forgiving.

I've never had to contact PST for a refund, but I'm going to document and photogaph my findings and see if hey will either trade my wore out parts for my money back or a new RUBBER kit.

I was only 2 weeks away from ordering another kit for my 70 Challenger....and I'll do business with PST again...but this time I think I'm going Rubber.

I'm sure others out there have had luck with the POLY, and I'll be calling the guy that sold my challenger to and see how his is holding up... buy I've seen this with my own eyes.

After a little research, I found this article...a must read: http://forums.motivemag.com/zerothread?id=4360601

Not sure what is going on there, but I have to say urethane usually lasts forever. Most of the time, the issues come from improper installation in some way. Using the proper assembly lube insures silent operation every time. Torquing suspension unloaded is a good way to tear up bushings, if they are designed to rotate.

my experience and thoughts are,poly squeaks and i hate squeaks,rubber was good enough for thirty years,i'll do rubber

I've installed polygraphite bushing is at least 5 different cars over 20+ years with ZERO issues.

I've put somewhere around 100k+ miles on at least 2 of those cars with poly, again, zero issues.

FWIW.

around 13 years ago I installed poly everywhere on my car except the LCA

well I just replaced the entire front end and guess which bushings were bad? yup the rubber LCA's the other rubber parts were like new and I;ve driven 17,000 miles, and had no squeaks, no problems and it handles alot better then the rubber setup

this time I went all poly and have no squeaks and am very happy with the install and ride.