Posted this on SELOC but thought one or two of you may know better on here being Exige specific. I’ve have the yellow adjustable ARB on my S2 Exige fitted as part of the Sport pack in 2008.
Could you shed any light on whether those plastic pivot bushes on the link below require any greasing during assembly on a late S2? I did a search where multiple pieces of advice came up but it was usually geared towards the rubber bushes on S1’s or the elise parts ARB on SELOC.
There is some lateral movement on the bar which is creating a knocking noise over most small road imperfections so something is clearly worn. Drop links look ok but I’ll replace anyway for the price whilst undertray/ wheels are off.
I can’t comment on the Lotus adjustable ARB and its mounting to the chassis, but my droplinks did have loads of slop in them on a 15k mile car (albeit 15 years old…). They’re cheap enough to swap out fairly regularly, so worth doing to rule out.
My OE non-adjustable ARB also had a bit of corrosion around the mountings, and the powdercoat had flaked off - again allowing a bit of slop.
Plastic bushes shouldn’t need lubricating as a rule. Indeed, it can often cause problems as some lubricants can cause plastics to degrade/swell, especially mineral-based oils & greases.
There are specialist types of grease formulated for plastics - because of the above, these tend to be specific to a particular plastic or group of similar ones.
The same applies to rubber bushes too. On parts like nitrile o-rings, a thin smear of silicone grease is fine, but things like WD40, 3-in-1, etc. will make it swell and tighten.