105 rear end moving around to much

[renegadealfa]

Hello,

My 1969 1750  bounces around to much in the rear end, it seems to react to every little undulation in the road. Feels like its dancing behind me. Have my bushes gone?

Thanks

[Garibaldi]

It may be the bushes or the shock absorbers. Get them checked out by someone like Pedders or a reputable specialist.

[Colin Byrne]

If the rear end feels unstable on a 105 there is a good chance that it is the trunion arm bushes at the diff end that have failed.  These bushes take a massive beating as they have to contend with both the longitudinal forces from cornering and the lateral reaction forces from braking and accelerating, and all the possible combinations in between. is there any knocking sounds coming from the rear end on bumps, or when braking and accelerating?
If you havn't already done it I would recommend replacing all the rear end bushes at the same time, its a pretty standard job to do in a 105,  The bushes themselves are relatively cheap and if you're mechanically minded it's not an impossible job to do yourself and should make a good improvement on the overall ride and handling.

good luck

[renegadealfa]

Thanks so much for the advise,  yes I like to do as much as possible myself, will I need any dedicated tool to replace all bushes? or the standard tool kit ?  should I consider replacing with rubber or some other material?

Regards

[Colin Byrne]

As far as tools go, you can pretty much pull the entire rear end out of the car with a standard toolkit, the only issue you might run into is the some of the trailing arm bolts are pretty big so you may not have the correct spanner/socket combination, From memory the big one is a 22mm, it's pretty easy to swing your head under the car and make sure you've got the correct sizes before you start the job. 
When  removing the old bushes, a press will make your life easier, but if you don't have one then you can drill out the vulcanized rubber enough to get a hacksaw through the bush and carefully cut through the outer shell of the bush, it's a bit of a pain in the ass, but it can be done. Rather than doing that I would recommend going down to super cheap and buying a little 6 Ton bench press, sooooooo useful, mine was only $80 and its been big enough to do nearly everything on a 105 including rebuilding the entire gearbox (many times over!)
There is nothing wrong with the original bushes, they do last very well, but as I've said on the forum before I don't think you can go past the super pro brand, they reduce a bit of the compliance, you don't need a press to install them (you will for the standard ones), and they wear very well, mine have been in the rally car sine I built it and I routinely check them and they look as good as the day I put them in

[Beatle]

You can also buy a 3/4" drive, large size Chinese socket set pretty cheaply too.  I bought one just to get a single large socket for a crankshaft nut, but have used the sockets more often as press tools because they give a variety of diameters.

[RobDee]

When  removing the old bushes, a press will make your life easier

The difficulty I found with using a press is getting the trailing arm to sit square.  The flared metal that curls out along the bottom edge interferes with the base of the press.  You will need to be creative with setting up.

[AikenDrum105]

Rob is right on the curl of the arms - I used some exhaust pipe offcuts from the local muffler place to sit the arm on, then the bush pressed out down into them.   

My super still had the original bushes from '66 in the arms...  when I replaced them recently I actually had to use a propane torch to get the inner sleeve hot enough to melt the rubber,  push it out, then use a hacksaw to cut through the rubber and the outersleeve of the bush - as Colin mentioned above - before the press could get them out - they were well seized in.   Same Super Cheapie press Colin mentions.. Bargain.

wear glasses

As a data point,  some of the earlier 105s, up to 66 or so, had smaller bushes in the trailing arms.   I bought some 'stiffer' rubber bushings for mine rather than poly ones on the advice of the Andrew @ Alfaholics, who runs the same in his uber-Super - the idea being to stiffen them up, but not lock them up too rigidly.     I used Poly for the conical bushes between the diff and trunnion bar.     I ran poly everywhere on my old 1750 gtv and was delighted with that too - didn't track it like the Super though

Hope that helps a little.

[alfagtv58]

Heads up, the $80 press mentioned is actually normally $200 but currently on special for $119 at Supercheap. 

[Barry Edmunds]

Unless you are intending to stiffen up the rear end of the 105 for competition use the standard rubber bushes will usually suffice. Fitting the Nolathane type bushes will really stiffen up the rear end but you could end up transmitting excessive road noise, particularly if you use a nylon or Nolathane bush in the trunnion arm/diff mount. Vin Sharp has bushes in a very good intermediate material that stiffens up the rear end but doesn't transmit road noise like the Nolathane style bushes do.
Barry