Marles varamatic steering box

[John Quilter]

Not planning to change any bushings on my car as they are all working fine but don't poly bushes detract from the quiet refinement of the suspension over rough surfaces? That is valuable to me, not any improvement in aggressive handling.

[Glyn Ruck]

Polybush and Powerflex are the brand names and these companies are trusted in the UK by most car enthusiasts be classic, modern race and rally. If you buy from them you can expect to get a quality product, if they fail then go back and complain, from personal experience using their products on various cars over the years they have performed well. This includes bushes for the Gaz shocks mountings fitted to the IRS in my car. It could be the bushes sold in SA are fake or generic copies but I've never heard of the problems arising that you quote in the UK using the brands I mentioned.

Thanks Nigel. That helps a lot. One thing I can tell you however, in our climate, the full locally South African made rubber kits for the Mk2 are way better than anything out of the UK. Yes you have to close the doors a little harder until they settle down but they are compounded for our conditions & last forever.

[Glyn Ruck]

BTW Nigel. The cursed ones on the Jeep were Polybush bought in the UK. Rear anti roll bar squeaked endlessly until we put Borate grease on them but they still cracked. Checked with my mate Andre last night. Anyway he has sold the thing & gone for a Pajero to keep his hot Porsche & other toys company.

African conditions are very different to the UK. Which is why fitting a tropical radiator to my S Type, made by your favourite company was a no brainer. We worry about dust while you worry about rust.

[NigelW]

That's interesting Glyn that the Polybush items failed but as you say your conditions are different to the UK. Did anyone contact Polybush and let them know how their products performed in SA? Maybe they need to think about this and produce a sutable compound for the export market. It would be interesting to find out what the race teams use in something like the Paris Dakar rally and La Carrera Panamericana race as a few Jaguars enter that race and I would have thought the conditions would be similar the SA. When I had my Vauxhall VX4/90 I had to source all the rubber components including windscreen, door and suspension bushes from Australia and found they were a far better quality than anything I could find in the UK, they probably have a lot harsher environmental requirements.

Just for the record I have fitted the black "comfort" bushes in my car and I find they give a great ride with superior suspension control than the rubber ones I previously fitted and didn't last very long.

[Glyn Ruck]

To my knowledge no one ever reported this to Polybush. They were just considered crap. Manufacturers really need to look at the Global market & make correct items for local climatic conditions in various parts of the world.

[Robbo911]

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Finally dragged the subframe out. Appears that I have no indent for the existing Burman PAS box. A lot of dismantling, cleaning and reassembly to do, swapping over to the other varamatic subframe. I’ve gone for the black polybushes, but it will be a while before it’s all back up and running.

[Glyn Ruck]

Yup! ~ that is correct.

[John Quilter]

Later cars had a fixed length centre tie rod without removable ball joints.

Your car obviously has the tube that you screw the tie rod ends into equally. The measurement is from centre of ball joint to centre of ball joint. The tube itself is fixed length. With Varamatic steering toe is set with the outer tie rods. The exact opposite of all previous models where toe was set on centre tie rod with fixed outer tie rods. This is to maintain centre of the variable curve that the Varamatic operates on.

Burman boxes had no indent in the subframe so it sounds as though you already have a Varamatic Subframe. See example below.

Varamatic centre tube..png

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So from Glyn's picture of all the nice clean steering parts laid out it appears the indent in the subframe for the Marles steering box was not done on both sides to accommodate both LHD and RHD cars using the same subframe. That seems odd.

[Glyn Ruck]

No. They were manufactured separately for LHD & RHD.

[John Quilter]

Thanks. In my 32 years working for Jaguar they did a lot of things that did not seem rational or aid serviceability.