Radial arm bushings: rubber vs poly?

I think the poly bushings will last a lot longer. I put poly bushings on my '93 Explorer and didn't notice any difference in the ride quality. Biggest improvement in ride quality was to use Michelin ATX tires. I also installed Edelbrock shocks, but they're crap after about a year.

Joey,

Do you plan to do the work yourself, or have a shop install the bushings? I'm asking because I need to replace these same bushings on my '91 and after reading the "how to" in the repair manual, I'm leaning towards letting a shop do it. Let me know how difficult this task turns out to be.

Thanks, Mike

I'm leaning to do it myself as I asked at Midas and they quoted me $560cdn for the job. That's $65 in parts and the rest is labour and taxes. That's

2 hours per side they say. After doing some reading, people are saying 6-7 hours for a backyard mechanic. I think I'm going to order some poly's this week. Most of the posts I've read said that poly's tighten up the front end good, hopefully not to much as to have a harsh ride or too much road noise transferred up through the chassis from the harder bushings.

Did you read these? Some good info.

Joey

Two hours per side..... looking at your numbers has Midas charging almost $125 per hour??? You're actually going to Midas??? I had a nephew that worked for Midas.... told him to talk to me after he found a real job....

you're interested. I don't normally pick on my competition but those box chains are busy giving me a bad name.... I know for a fact that I don't get paid two hours per side for RA bushings and I now for sure that our shop doesn't charge more than $78/hr...... (and that's at a dealer...).

If the bushings have never been replaced before, there are two rivets on each side that need to be removed.... a couple or four minues with a decent air chisel - the rest is bolts though the big nuts on the ends of the radius arms can be fun..... you can heat these but if you get them even close to cherry, it's time for new ones. Try and save the heat shield on the right side.... it's close to the convertor.

HTH

Jim Warman snipped-for-privacy@telusplanet.net

My local wrench charged $75 for one side.

I had stopped there to get an estimate to see if it was worth while saving me from freezing outside doing the job. Seems like most days I have free time on have daytime highs of -20 without the windchill. There estimate was: $65.99 bushings $296.00 4hrs labour $74.00 Basic 2wl align $12.95 environmental charge?? $67.35 taxes ----------------- $516.29 total I'm not sure what the environmental charge is for or whether it really needs a wheel alignment after changing the bushings. Had alignment done a year ago after he dealer readjusted the front bearings that another shop had adjusted(55 mile/hr wheel shake). I'll probably wait until a nicer (above -10) weekend, they should be coming soon I hope.

I was also wondering about using these "Heavy-duty bushings" from Moog that are supposed to be better than polys according to a couple of different mechanics I've talked to. If anybody knows about these, please let me know what you think.

Thanks Joey

if you're interested.>

That's what I am 'saying'! I paid under 200 USd$ for both sides a year ago. One bushing was completely missing, the other was half there. Everything feels and looks fine down there. I am sure it is cheap rubber, but still!

And (drumroll) this was at Allied. Maybe they felt bad for my old bushings, hahah.

Buy some grade 8 bolts to replace the rivets that you can cold chisel or air chisel out and you can easily do it yourself. I did mine on my driveway in a couple of hours. Parts at AutoZone were around $10 and at NAPA around $35.

-- Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts:

"What, sir, is the use of militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. . . Whenever Government means to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise a standing army upon its ruins." -- Debate, U.S. House of Representatives, August 17, 1789

I ended up doing the work myself, and it really wasn't all that difficult. I used my Dremel's cutt-off wheel to slice a "tic tac toe" pattern in the rivot heads, which weaken them substantially. A cold chissel easly removed the remaining rivot head sections. Two of the four rivots easly punched out while the remaining two first needed to have a 3/16" diam. hole drilled into the shank about 1/4" deep before they too could be punched out using a hammer and drift.

I removed both halves of the cross brace as a single piece, replaced the bushings and then re-installed the brace. The only time I used my jack was to push the radial arms into position. All in all, not a hard job at all.

My thanks to all the contributers of the

site, and to Elbridge Gerry. Mike