Spherical bearing suspension top hats

[evel]

I ordered a new set of top hats for the front suspension in my mk1 Escort from Burtons. After installing  them and having a quick drive the front end now has a nice knock that I have traced to some play in the spherical bearings in the top hats. The bearings do have a small valley in them that looks like it will accept grease but no grease nipple or location to install a grease nipple.  I removed the hats and greased them up by hand, the bearings ungreased do feel loose but once I put some grease in them they felt ok. Reinstalled back to the car, knock still present. 

Anyone have an further ideas? Or am I off to find some normal rubber hats?

 

[mjrstar]

should not need grease - probably crap quality spherical bearing if you can physically feel looseness, a good quality bearing on its own is probably going to sting you $80-$90, it will have a teflon seal and generally last pretty well, although there will be a noticeable jump in road noise and vibration compared to rubber, I ran a set of spherical top hats in my evo and a set on my kp starlet never had any issues with bearing noise.

 

Are you sure the through stub on the shock is the correct diameter and the shoulder on the end of the strut is seated nicely, also did you get a tapered nut or washer for the top side to seat up against the bearing.

[evel]

They came with some adaptor collars to adapt the stub to the inner diameter of the bearing. No fasteners were supplied but I did install them with a washer and a nyloc nut.

I suspect just a low quality bearing as they were at the cheaper end.

[peteretep]

try taking it apart and taking some dimensions, might be able to find a replacement part