Just some random observations from personal experience and further thought.... I don't think the silentbloc bushes are deliberate designed obsolescence; it's such a bitch of a job to replace them the vast majority of owners would resent having to do the job or pay the money to farm it out so it would be counterproductive. The cost of the bushes, being fairly cheap, would not warrant the hassle. The whole point of designed obsolescence is to make it easy for owners to spend money on a regular basis. There may be other examples of designed obsolescence on the A10 but I can't think of any (apart from the whole bike - BSA went bust for a reason! The Japanese made the A10 / A65 obsolete). Even when these bikes were being used as daily commuting bikes they would probably be on the road for an hour or two on a weekday, the rest of the time they would be on the centre stand. Consider the maths... 10,000 miles (200 miles a week, 40 miles a workday) at an average speed of 30 m.p.h. = less than one hour per day in a 7 day week on the road and 23 hours on the centre stand so, fitting the bushes in anything other than their centre stand position seems to be putting the bushes under unnecessary strain for 95% of their lives. I've fitted plenty of bronze bushes in my time as well and that's not a lot of fun either! Even though silentbloc bushes allow for a bit of instability I think they are an improvement on traditional bronze bushes. The only time I or anybody else in my sphere of friends have needed to change the silentbloc bushes is when it has been desirable to remove the swinging arm for cosmetic treatment (no, not botox!). I've never come across any which were actually worn out, but I've come across plenty of bronze bushes which were worn out. Silentbloc bushes don't need lubricating of course. The best A10 I've ever had was my 1954 plunger, no silentblocs in sight! However my swinging arm A10's handle better, but the plunger was just such a lovely bike to ride. A friend of mine used to work for a firm called Monroe (shock absorbers) and he says the silentbloc bushes are incredible, the twisting force they will withstand has to be seen to be believed and he reminded me that car suspension bottoms out maybe dozens of times every trip and the movement on a wishbone is greater than the swinging arm travel on an A10. For those people who insist on compressing their suspension whilst tightening their swinging arm spindle remember this.... As soon as you take the weight off your bike that skinny bit of rubber is straining and stretching and trying to release itself from its metal casing and it'll be doing it all the time, like a persistent irritating itch which won't give up until it bleeds, every hour of every day whilst you're not riding your bike, whilst you're asleep at night, whilst you're on holiday, whilst the garage door is closed it's out of sight stretching and straining until it starts to release like that first piece of peeling wallpaper that just gets more irritating and worse and worse until it falls off the wall completely... and as soon as the rubber starts to separate from the casing there's less rubber gripping on the casing so it gets easier for the rest of the rubber to creep away like water rotting through cardboard in a nightmare that at first you can hold back but in the end it just overwhelms you and suffocates you in a torrent of soggy papier-mâché, then the ghosts of the BSA design engineers crowd round you and shake their fists and their fingers look like silentbloc bushes and they twist them until their knuckles crack to demonstrate just how resilient the silentbloc bushes are, and you'll scream and beg forgiveness for not paying attention to section D12 of the BSA A65 workshop manual which retrospectively addresses the urban myth that silentbloc bushes are the work of the devil and should therefore live their lives under permanent stress. I promise not to contribute to this thread ever again - really regret starting it - should know better at my age! Good Night!
