Charlie's suspension top hat bushing

[dliverance]

Hi gang. I'm in the middle of building my front suspension and I need to come up with a bushing for the front top hats. I don't know how other people are fixing this but I want to order a bushing. Now, My suspension is at home and I can't get the measurements but I did find some bushings on McMaster. Is there anyone that can take a few measurements for me please. I need to know the OD of the VW coilover rod and the ID of the kia rio top hat bore. The depth of the bearing in the top hat bore would help greatly too.

Here's a link to the bushings I have in mind.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-sleeve-bearings/=145n4zg

Here's what I'm trying to do

[bhazard]

Just use a tapered lug nut.

[william]

Arorn lug nut will keep it centered but I'm just running mine will the stock nut with no issues.
Bhaz is too fast for me lol

[dliverance]

Unfortunately I don't have any spare lug nuts and these would be cheaper.

[Wimp]

Use a tapered or cone seat lug nut like Bhaz said, and so you don't have to figure it out yourself, use ones with a 14mx1.5 thread. I had no idea what thread pitch I needed and looked like a mook walking into places carrying a coilover strut, figured I'd save you the trouble of asking.

[skeeters_keeper]

The dia difference is fairly small... .010-.015" ish IIRC, been a while though. Too small for me to feel comfortable turning a bushing ( I couldn't find bushings that were the right size) and I didn't feel it was necessary to turn down a nut like Charlie did. So I just used some "shim" (i.e. aluminum tape), wrapped it up snug, off to the races.

[dliverance]

Use a tapered or cone seat lug nut like Bhaz said, and so you don't have to figure it out yourself, use ones with a 14mx1.5 thread. I had no idea what thread pitch I needed and looked like a mook walking into places carrying a coilover strut, figured I'd save you the trouble of asking.

I got these and they were wrong lol. Mine were m12x1.25.

[mikemounlio]

I just used the nut it came with. Mine feel fine. Ill replace with a lug nut tho as its just easy!

[Advancedynamix]

I turn the shock shafts on a lathe to make mine fit perfectly.


However, I've used cone seat 14mm lug nuts in the past. They have them at most auto parts stores. They do the trick and you can even buy those crazy spike looking ones if you want to spice things up.

[dliverance]

Thats interesting that the ones you guys use have 14mm threads. Maybe thats why there was so much more room on mine. I might use a bushing later. If i notice any problems

[Advancedynamix]

Hmm. I only used lug nuts on the bilstien coilovers that I built several years ago. They may be different from the Graceland style of Coilovers that we use here.