Ok, I'm well versed in some areas of the car, but still newb in others. I've talked a lot about and looked up about bushings on this forum and on the net a whole lot, but what I've never really seen is a clear definition of what a bushing's purpose is. I had thought that a bushing's purpose was to buffer metal parts where they join and move/pivot at, but as I've been looking into stuff I came across bushings that are just like "covers".
Somebody or all please answer these questions:
1. Is a bushing's purpose merely to cover the metal to protect from debris?
2. Do bushing's experience pressure or binding when the metal that it covers moves?
3. What is the primary eroder of bushings?
4. What is a bushing vs a cover vs a stopper or are they all synonmous?
5. Can/Will anyone name ALL the bushings (IE: or rather all the rubber underneath that is part of our suspension/steering system) that are on our cars?
Take for example the ball joint covers. I've heard them referred to as bushings, covers, stoppers, etc... which makes finding all the rubber parts just by looking in CAPS kind of difficult due to the different names of the stuff as recently I ordered some bushings and thereafter realized I didn't have all that I needed possibly like the ones on the stabilizer links.
Well whats the deal? I'm sure a lot of others don't really know either and rather just replace rubber parts because they look bad or "think" they need to because of age not knowing what they are there for really.
