Does anyone have any experience of replacing the Brake Reaction Bar Bushes on a 91 416 (R8) with Poly bushes?

Got the bar powder coated but when I have come to fit it all back together I'm having all sorts of problems.

Firstly the flat face of the Poly bush doesn't fit in the recess in the front sub frame, it seems too big. I cant even get the nut on the end of the reaction bar to help squeeze the bushes into the sub frame recess. Any one got any tips or do I have to trim a bit off to make them fit.
I found some brand new rubber bushes when I was clearing my dad's garage a couple of years so worst case I'll fit those rather than the poly bushes.

The second problem is I'm struggling to refit the two bolts in that connect the brake reaction bar with the lower suspension arm.
I am able to get one bolt in but can't align the 2nd hole well enough to get the bolt in. Even without the bushes in place I can only get the 2 bolts on off side in places.
It looks as if the suspension has been pulled by back slightly.

The manuals tell you to jack the car up but I've got it on car ramps as I was doing another job before I decided it would be a good use of time to quickly change the bushes over ! . Wondering if this is adding to my problems?

Any tips on how to fit the poly bushes and move the suspension arm forward to get better alignment would be greatly appreciated.

I'm not familiar with the 416, but on our 1990 214 I've had similar problems refitting suspension arms such as the trailing arm and upper and lower links on the rear suspension. If you can't get the bolt holes to align, it is probably going to need jacking up a bit under the part in question, or using a scissor jack positioned against the garage wall to force the part sideways. The suspension is designed to be in the rest position with the car's weight on it, so when it's jacked up or on axle stands, it may be in slightly the wrong position. Sometimes the bolts have a cone on the end to help them start in the threaded hole. If not you can always put one on with a bench grinder. On poly bushes, I did have to trim them slightly when I fitted them to the rear trailing arms to help them go in.

If your fitting poly bushes to the brake reaction arms they fit the opposite way around to the factory bushes

Thanks that would explain it, one problem solved
The box shows the bushes the other way round but I assumed it was a photographic error. Shame they don’t give assembly instructions to this affect.
Thanks again

How can a simple job of replacing a couple of bushes become so consuming and frustrating

Tried tapered bolts, straps and scissor jacks to align the two holes on the reaction bar with those on the lower arm to no avail, close but not quite there.
The poly bushes give very little flex , as one might expect.

I’ve decided as a last ditch attempt with the poly bush to remove the rim which does not appear on the oe bushes as the diameter of the body on both the poly bush and the oe bush is the same. I’m hoping the rim is causing a bit of misalignment of the reaction bar. If all else fails it’ll be back to the rubber bushes as I’m a bit sick of seeing the car on the ramps rather than going to shows in the sunshine

Well finally got the new bushes fitted.
5 hours for the first one and 30 minutes for the second one.
Here's a few comments on how I finally managed to fit the new bushes
Firstly I found trimming the lip off the poly bush seemed to help with the alignment.



In the end I aligned the reaction bar by bolting it to the lower suspension arm with both bolts.
I then aligned the the other end of the bar, if necessary, in the front sub frame hole using a strap round the lower suspension arm and a scissor jack to apply the load.
I removed the bar, fitted the new bushes, refitted the bar and secured it by torquing up the nut on the bush end of the reaction bar.
This pulled the reaction bar forward which aligned one of the bolt holes on the lower suspension arm with and the reaction bar. I fitted a bolt and just nipped it up.
I then fitted a 50mm long bolt, on which I had formed a fairly long taper, screwing this in from the bottom of the lower suspension arm so that when it came out the top side of the suspension arm the taper was able to pull the reaction bar in place.
I made sure that the threaded part of the bolt went through the reaction bar to give the best alignment of holes.
I then tightened the first bolt fitted and then replaced the tapered bolt with the correct bolt and retorqued the nut securing the bushes,
This is not the procedure outlined in the Haynes or Rover manual but it worked for me and was evident by the ease by which the second set of bushes was fitted.
Job done thankfully.

Well done! That's the right approach, you need to use a bit of ingenuity on these things to get them to line up. There's usually a way. Done lots of things like that over the years on my old Rootes cars too.

Since it took so long to do in some ways I wish I had done a complete overhaul of all the bushes now. Still I have the knowledge and the tools to do this part of the job easier next time