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On day two of a squeak hunt on my Flare, and have moved onto these plastic top hat bushings:
couple of questions - have taken them apart and cleaned them, do they go back dry or with a bit of grease?
And how tight would you expect them to be? Pretty easy to pull out.
TIA etc.
Bushings - no grease. The bushing is essentially a self lubricating part.
If they come out easy or fall out, the bushing needs replacing. If not, just clean up. Often sorts out shock creaking.
Depending on the shock, you might want to look into heavy duty mount kits which are more durable than some of the basic top-hat stuff. Though some newer shocks are putting decent mounts in them now.
Likewise poly bushings may be worth looking at if they aren't already.
Cheers. These ones are pretty new, but I'll see if there are some poly ones I can swap in.
Apparently they were on the loose side when they went in. Does that mean that the metal insert in the frame might have to be swapped (if that's possible..)?
Actually, just blindly posting without looking at the photo and realising it's not a shock but pivot joint?
Ignore the mount kit stuff. It'll be specific to the frame. Are they bushings inside, not bearings?
If bushings though, they're designed to be soft wearing and sacrificial so usually if loose or the top hats are loose, then just replace bushing and should be tight fit again.
Yes, they're bushings - couple of plastic top hats sitting in a metal sleeve which seems to be bonded into the frame. I've already been around regreasing all the bearings.
Just had a closer look at the top hats - they're actually anodized metal! I'm presuming this means a bit of grease wouldn't go amiss? The degree of movement of this particular pivot is tiny.