replaced my bushings today and as soon as i got on my board i noticed a really odd sound that almost sounds like a bearing ball not fully in all the way or something? didn't touch my wheels at all, but i did take the trucks off and put them on a new deck as well. trucks are venture 5.8 lights with dlx supercush purples, top n bottom washer. anyone know what this could be? was definitely not the squeaking sound of new bearings
If it is a rattling sound, that is often when the nut is not quite done up tightly enough on the kingpin (metal washers vibrating as you roll) or the washers are moving and making a clicking sound when you turn left and right which can be the metal washers moving against the kingpin or baseplate, or even the nut.
I have a board that the kingpins are loose in the sockets and they rattle a fair bit too, but I think you need to check how it is making noise or what it sounds like, eg if only when rolling, or just standing still and leaning heel to toe, etc?
As people seem to write about bushings break-in time, and agreeably it seems to vary between brands, does someone know what actually causes the "break-in"? Because some factory treatment w/ silicone grease which needs to evaporate? Street dust going to surfaces and making them a bit dryer? Urethane changing form somehow? I've noticed that manually applying a coating of silicone grease converts almost any bushing to unskateable (at least for me) loose, and fixing that takes long time.
I guess a lot of people are different, as well as some bushing brands will vary as well, combined with how much people tighten them down - too much too soon and you often "break" them more so than "break them in" so to speak.
Without doing too much to them, I usually ride the Indy 92 and they are pretty much perfect from go, but I do spend the first session or two just carving around more so than doing anything else, as well as riding what might be considered fairly loose trucks.
Others I know who ride tighter trucks often break them or they end up blowing out if they set them up and just go hard right away.
Doing things like putting silicone or other things on them might work, but I think as you find they can become more slippery and in turn feel very loose, but I am not a scientist so would not know the properties of that side of things.
About the only thing I do is a drop of lubricant or tiny bit of WD40 in the pivot cup if they are squeaking and they are usually fine after that.
I am not going to say which brands I didn't like as others have their own experiences with them, but seem to recall too, from helping people with some brands of bushings, they just don't' seem to break in much at all and don't bounce back in the way that bushings should, given they are urethane and should be squashy but also return to their original form after being pushed this way and that.