It would seem to me that the rubber outer part of the bush is stationary in the wishbone and bears the load. The rotational part is either the large yellow surface beneath the outer bush washer against that washer, and/or the inner yellow surface inside the rubber bush which contacts the spacer sleeve.
What is the designed action?
I have some aftermarket bushes here that need some tweaking and want to give them the best chance to work for a while. Knowing exactly how they work would be helpful and I'm just not certain.

I would have sent them back to the vendor, but he refunded most of my money so I'm going to give them a shot since they aren't terribly hard to R&R if they should fail prematurely.

 

After handling these for a while I decided that the rotational bit should be the inner bush yellow surface on the spacer sleeve. I've hand worked most of the 8 bushes until they all spin freely by hand but without slop on the center sleeves. 4 of them were so tight on the sleeves when I got them that I had to use serious force with a hammer to get them off the sleeves, which made for some extra work cleaning up hammer damage. I ended up using a small 1/2 round file and finishing with emery cloth, trial fitting as I went until I got a uniform action from all the bushes on the sleeves. 2 fit well as they were and 2 just took a touch with emery cloth to get 'right'.

Thankfully the outer rubber section does properly fit the wishbone without any work. I will install these and see how they perform. I'll keep you all posted on the results over time.

Engel sent me the wrong front springs and I am waiting for the correct ones to be shipped out so I can get this back together. (The bushes did not come from Engel) The box containing the springs was marked to be what I needed, but the springs inside were for something other than my car. They had the wrong paint marking and had an additional coil winding, as well as the coil thickness was not as thick as my old coils. Very strange.

I'm doing a Wayne inspired front upper strut mount DIY using Energy components for the large donut and adding an Energy lower perch along with all my original nylon spacers and such. My upper inner section inside the sandwich that takes the top of the strut still is in good shape, so I may just rivet it back together and call it good.

I used a die grinding Christmas tree bit on a rotary air tool to free-hand the bevel inside the donuts and they fit nicely. Thanks to Wayne and other members who worked on a solution for the pesky strut mount supply/quality issue. I have a set of aftermarket poly mounts here that I may do the inner mod to and replace the donut, or I may just sell them since some do last.

 

I am in the same process of restoring my front suspension. My question is how did you break loose the upper ball joints from the wishbone? My joints are really stuck and is being a real PITA to break loose. I have new ball joints on the way and I guess it will come down to a pickle fork and a big hammer. I think someone used cheap ball joints in the past and they have fused into the hub with time.
In regards to the busings I am going to use poly bushings. Other members have reported good results with poly.
Good luck on your project.

 

Thanks David

I didn't remove mine on this job, my car is super clean and the ball joints are still in good condition. My preferred method is the two hammer trick or an impact hammer and back up with a sledge against the opposite side. Good luck with them.

In rare cases I use poly, but in my own experience I prefer rubber if I can get good quality parts. It's a personal preference thing.