AE86 Tech #86-30: Camber plates

 I've had Cusco camber plate in the purple delight for quite a long time.  I've never really thought of servicing them, since, I've never seen anyone else talk about them.  A while back I did notice that the little pillow ball that attached the shock absorber was loose.  So I thought it was about time for a rebuild.

With the plate off the car, these little bits of unknown material fell off from under the plate.  Dont know what it is, but it's something to do with the plate.

A close up of the pillow ball in the housing.  As you can notice there's  quite a gap between the housing and the ball.  I figure all I have to was remove the old spherical bearing and replace it.  But since this is made in Japan, it will be equipped with a metric bearings.  Hopefully I can find an equivalent.  The only worry was that it may not be available.   Remember folks here in america, so we are the last to stick with standard measures instead of moving with the rest of the world with metric.

But to my surprise this is what I got when I tore it apart.

 I was expecting a spherical bearing to pop out from the assembly, but I end up with this arrangement.  From what I see the upper part of the plate is part of the ball housing and the brass piece Is like the retainer that keeps in place.  It's held together by the lower plate.

 On the lower plate, this is what I found.  Don't have a clue of it's composition.  It's all dried up and destroyed when I tried to remove it.  But I think it's supposed to keep brass ring in place with a bit of a cushion.  I wonder if i can find an something similar at home depot.

The top plate was greased where the ball would meet the housing.  I add a bit too much grease here since the ball end squeezed out alot of the excess.

 The upper plate was reassembled with the ball and brass ring.  Since I didn't know what the material was on the lower plate, I made do with what I had available.  I used an o ring to keep the brass ring in place.  Both the upper and lower plates have a step built so the won't be completely smashed. 

Since there's no rebuild manual readily available and trying to locate any necessary part would just plain ridiculous.  I just made do with what I deemed appropriate.  Granted this may not be proper, but unless someone's got a better idea, I'm open to discussion. At least I didn't have to spend money on buying a new spherical bearing. 

Yaay no more gap, no more noise

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