Help needed bad, What material do the mast trunnion bushings on a forklift need to be made of

[SShep71]

I am so close to getting my (late 1970s) Hyster S30 put back together, it is really holding up soo many other projects at this point. I took the mast off to rebuild all the rail bushings and bearings (they were bad or missing), in doing so I found that the mast support bushings on one side of the mast are pancaked. One side is good, the other, is a mess. There is only a little damage to the trunnion of the wheel axle, but the bushing is no good. It doesn't look like anyone greased anything on this lift before I bought it years ago. The bushings are shown in the generic diagram as part number "20B"

I am trying to put things together, but the bushing is backordered for almost 2 months and I just cannot wait that long. It would really cause a lot of problems. My only other option is turning my own, which isn't really an issue but these bushings look like they are phenolic of some other composite fiber material. I thought about making them out of phenolic, delrin, brass, bronze, and G10. I am just not sure what is the best way to approach this. Typically bronze would just be a fallback, but there is some uneven wear (less than 0.010 thousands) on the axle trunnion. It looks like it is possible to take the stub housing off and turn it in the lathe, but it looks like a lot more work. I am thinking that a non metallic bushing would be the way to go here. Does anyone have any ideas? Are there any old forklift guys on here that have been in a similar situation.

I just want to save some guys the keyboard strokes, yes this is an old forklift and yes parts are hard to find, however, I have completely rebuilt this lift up until this very point. It is jokingly "resto-modded", it is the smallest 3000lb lift with a 3 stage mast that I have ever seen. At the widest point it is only 34" wide, I can't find anything even close in size to replace it with that isn't made over seas. A brandy dandy new one from Hyster is physically bigger and is almost $30k. I say this to save you the time, there will not be any replacing of the lift.

 

[Mechanola]

Turn them from bronze, cut in halves. Make sure you can apply grease any time, that will keep them alive for years to come.

 

[SShep71]

Yeah, that's what I am thinking at this point. There is already grease fittings in the bracket they mount to. I just don't want to spend another $200.00 for another piece of bronze. I was just hoping someone had some cardinal knowledge component that I am missing.

 

[kustomizer]

I had a recent need for bronze bushings and found I could buy bushings from motion industries, 209-334-2530 with too big of an od and too small of an id, double the length I wanted for around 20 bucks each. I still have to machine them but way cheaper than raw material