Has anyone radius arm bushings like this?

[uh60james]

Has anyone done radius arm bushings like this?

1. Loosen axle pivot bolt and upper shock absorber pivot bolt and compress shock.
2. Remove nut and washer attaching radius arm to radius arm bracket. Remove outer insulator and spacer, Fig. 10.
3. Move radius arm and axle assembly forward out of radius arm bracket. Remove inner insulator and retainer.
4. Reverse procedure to install. Tighten upper shock bolt, axle pivot bolt and nut to specifications.

It sounds easy, but I haven't seen any posts of people doing it this way.

I am trying to avoid the common way that people on this site have been doing it becuase I have no air tools. I'm sure those rivets could be done with a dremel but that would no doubt take forever. Plus I would need to have bolts on hand before hand since the exploder is my only car. So it's not very feasable for me to do it like that.

 

[boggs1227]

$5-7 in grade 8 bolts
cheap electric grinder at big lots $13
total parts (not includeing bushing) = $20
amount of time and sweat saved = priceless


i plan to do mine this way .

 

[04sd]

I've done one by pulling the axles front but I used a porta power hydraulic ram to push it front. I've heard of guys using a come-a-long to pull it front. If I had to do it again I'd probably remove the rivets.

 

[uh60james]

I never thought of using an electric grinder. Good call on that. Any idea as to what size of bolts they need to be? I dont recall that being in the how-to post, maybe it was and I just missed it.

 

[Four0Sport]

i used 7/16" grade 8 bolts about 2 inches long

 

[04sd]

I just put a front spring mount on a '91 Ranger today. Ground off the rivet heads with a 4.5" angle grinder and knocked them out with a punch on an air chisel. You could use a hand punch and a big hammer. 7/16" bolts fir right in, I used grade 8 fine thread with lock nuts.

 

[Anime]

What the procedure leaves out is that you have to remove the front coil springs as well, not just the shocks. This can make it quite the task depending how long the spring retainers have been on there. Usually you're talking a 6-pt deep socket and a breaker bar, plus a cheater pipe to get those things to even start to move. I think it's worth it to do it this way to get everything cleaned up, but it probably is easier to do the rivets when you can and then replace them that way from then on, though messsing around with the radius arm brackets is its own fun.

Keep in mind it's possible to replace the rear part of the radius arm bushings by just removing the nut and washer holding them in..and the rear on the right side is usually what goes out due to how close it is to the catalytic converter.