Bushing replacement disaster (1 Viewer)

[amaurer]

I'm leaning towards moron previous owner...my old bushings are just too thin. The new OEM rubber ones are about 8mm thick from inside to outside and the new skyjacker ones are about 6mm..my old ones are 3.5mm at best which did look very thin to me and would go along away in explaining the horrible ride on my 40.

Also, taking a look inside my old bushings, I can see pitting which could be from hollowing out the few extra millimeters to fit the bushings. I just find it unlikely that skyjacker made two different size bushings with identical part#'s...anyone know if Old Man Emu bushings are the same size as OEM? I'm afraid that upgrading the entire suspension might be necessary at this point.

Hard to really call him a moron - he had a drivable cruiser and you don't...


Seriously though, if skyjacker doesn't have the right size bushing, hollowing them out would seem to be the logical step. If you search the forum you'll find that thats actually a quite common occurrence.

 

[cxh10]

The hollowed out old bushings just seem too flimsy and small. Comparing them to a new rubber OEM bushing in terms of size and thickness is laughable. To me, if the bushings are half as thick as they're designed to be then that should logically equal twice the amount of rattling, vibrating, etc. I just don't know that I want to put any time and effort into doing inferior repairs.

 

[cxh10]

Ok, so I returned the skyjacker bushings and my new Old Man Emu leaf springs are arriving sometime this week. Anything I need to know before changing out the springs? I already have the old ubolts soaking in PB blaster and will hit them with a little bit more every day so hopefully they won't give me too much trouble next week when I have a chance to start changing the springs out. How difficult of a process is it to change out the springs?