I’ve never heard of the Sportpak bushings failing.
1 Like
31 years. Confirmed as new.
Kirbert, what else from sport pack is in there and is it also bulletproof?
There may be differences in shocks, springs, anti-roll bars, etc. Oh, and the forward bushing on the trailing arms is rotated 90 degrees, making it a bit stiffer axially.
1 Like
If you do a search for the S80 XJRS product support manual you will see all the JaguarSport items used on the 1992 XJR-S. I think the sport pack rack bushings were later than that though.
Kirbert, Thank You for that last nugget of information concerning the failure aspect… I respect both yours and Bernards , as well as many others, opinions and information. As I am the 3rd owner of this little jewel and the fact that she spent the majority of her life garaged and driven very little as evidenced by the 18 YEAR OLD tires I replaced. I have discovered that quite a bit of the rubber in her was original and was in need of replacement. I have replaced quite a bit and was mildly worried about the movement of the rack. I don’t feel it is excessive at this time and will keep an eye on it. This inquiry was prompted mostly by a concern for the safety aspect of these bushings. I feel much better about it now.
Also, Janusz, Thanks for the chime in about your 31 year old ones.
The sports pack bushings as described above must have been the ones that I removed from the 4.0. I would be hard pressed to say that they had failed, but I can confirm that the steering did have a certain amount of play in it, and I thought that it could be much tighter. So, aside from renewing the entire suspension I thought it prudent to renew the rack bushings with poly’s as well.
Did they look like this:
or like this:
(without the red washer)
There was one bushing that looked like the first one, and two bushings that looked like the second. Also, there is some none Jaguar tool that others have mentioned (costs about $40.00) to remove the bushings, but it won’t work on the second set of bushings. I had one hell of a time removing those bushings.
What is the consensus on rack bushings? I’m told urethane is attacked by engine oikl, would neoprene top hat type be best?
Jim 1984 XJSC 3.6L manual
Brighton UK
I don’t know of any such thing. AFAIK the only bushings that would be better than polyurethane would be to have them specially made out of Billet aluminum. You wouldn’t have to worry about any type of fluid and they would last forever.
Why not just fix the oil leaks instead of worrying about which types of bushings are resistant to oil?
I’ve already purchased the black poly bushings that have been recommended for decades on this forum.
yeah, you should not be worried about oil attacking your rack bushings. If so, you have a major oil leak that needs to be fixed.
If that’s the case, I can’t imagine the bushings need to be changed. What could possibly have gone wrong with your bushings?
I think those Sportspack bushings are essentially permanent. You’d eventually have to replace urethanes, but these metal ones seem indestructable?
I don’t know what could have gone wrong, and it could be entirely possible that they were as good as new. What I do know is that I thought that the steering wasn’t tight and a somewhat vague.
I will not loose one bit of sleep after replacing any of the parts on my car that may have been in perfect condition, because if I am in the vicinity I don’t want to have to revisit that area again, and I also know that I will have established a base line for future reference. There won’t be any old parts stressing out new parts or new parts deteriorating old ones. And, even if the Poly’s aren’t everlasting, I’m confident that they’ll be good for as long as I’ll likely own the car. Besides, I don’t remember what they cost, but they couldn’t have been more than $30.00, $40.00, it’s not even worth talking about.
Here’s some more good reason to go poly. It’ll be the last time you ever use the bushing tool. You’ll be doing it by hand from here on out!
Let us know how it goes, please.
I don’t own the OEM Jaguar bushing tool, but from the looks of things I do believe that it is the only bushing tool designed to remove the Sports pack bushings. Removing them in any other way is by any means necessary, which I hate to admit but took me several days to remove the two special bushings out of the three.
I won’t know how well the washer configuration that I came up with in order to snug up the bushings to make them fit as tight as possible will have worked until I get the car back on the road. I just hope that it will be noticeably tighter than before.
The Sportpack bushings are very durable, indeed. Very few of us have seen the need to replace them.
Rebushing the rack if Sportpack fitted is far from trivial. Here is the video that shows what is required and how it is done with the Jaguar tool. I posted it recently in another thread:
I don’t even understand how those bushings could fil in a way to muddy up the steering. I am concerned that you’ll go through all this trouble, only to find the steering unimproved. Those metal ears, like what you find on the poly bushes are what tighten up the steering response. The original bushings did not have them, but the upgrade resolves that…permanently.
I have the sports pack bushings but there still was some play. The rubber is quite soft, or maybe it gets softer with age, I don’t know.
I just added the same thing on the other side with pieces cut from a poly bushing and I can say that there was an improvement. It’s more precise now and the steering wheel returns willingly to dead center, before it had a few degrees of indecisiveness.
Anything that involves metalastic (I think that’s the term for the wonders of metal glued to rubber) bushings is prone to failure in some axis. I’ve never heard of any issues with the poly “top hat” bushings. I’ve used them in all my jags without any problems.