rubber and/or poly subframe TAB

[jrobie79]

Recently went to get my car aligned (rear weld on kit) and couldn't because the outboard (toe) adjusters were seized.

Dropped my subframe and discovered the TABs are junk - I believe they were IE, not positive though. My subframe bushings are IE and are perfectly fine.

My question is - if I go stock rubber TABs should I swap the subframe bushings to rubber? Just looking for input, I'd like to not replace the subframe ones if I can, for money reasons

[agent]

When I was shopping for bushings and RTABs, Cherie at Harrison Motorsports said they always recommend the hardest grade poly for RTABS on a car that will be tracked at all, regardless of which subframe bushing you choose. That said, I was looking at the various poly offerings and wasn't planning to put rubber back in.

FWIW I ended up going with 95A subframe and diff, and 75D RTABs - AKGs for all.

[jrobie79]

its 100% DD...that said I know it would be soo much easier to go new poly, but they are more $$

I swapped it all to poly a several years back because I was young and I guess some say dumb...I didn't notice it being too harsh from stock, but then again when I swapped to poly from stock the stock were beat to shit, so I guess I didn't have any real expectations or knowledge of what new OEM felt like

[agent]

Yeah, for a 100% DD car I'd put rubber back in.

[estoguy]

Rubber will be fine for a DD and not that hard to swap, if you had to do it again.

For the install, you just need to lube them with soapy water. I pulled the whole frame out. I ran a wire brush on a drill to make sure the insides of the housings were nice and clean. The subframe bushings went in with a mallet. The RTABs with a homemade tool... check out E30zone wiki. There is a homemade tool shown there for RTABs. When you pull rubber RTABs, you just need to heat the housing a bit with a torch and use the homemade tool... come out nicely.

I noticed a difference right away having good bushings.

Don't forget to tighten the RTAB bolts with the rear wheels on the ground or ramps.

[kronus]

I read somewhere at some point that if you have eccentric adjusters you should use OE rubber TABs or they will bind.

A guy on e30tech machined some monoball TABs to address this problem but I haven't seen him around in a few years.

[jrobie79]

I had the IE's with the eccentric adjusters, and they never seemed to bind...the TA dropped fairly easily when I unbolted the shock, but I ordered rubber anyways, gonna keep the subframe bushings poly because I'm cheap and I haven't had any problems with them

[gespinal0301]

I recently updated my entire suspension and rear subframe. I decided to go with poly bushings and while it is a wayyyyy better experience the vibration is extremely faint/hardly noticeable. Everything on my car is poly from the CAB to the motor and tranny mounts, even the guibo is. My car is a DD as well and the ride is very similar to stock.

To get the TABs out I followed this principle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WEzP5OEzvQ took about 2 minutes to set up and another minute to get it out. It helps to heat up the frame with a torch to help them slide out

[2mAn]

I used the "softer" Poly from AKG and the ride is fine, its the noise that is annoying me