Rear Shackle/ Bushing question +newbie intro

[Lextech1]

Im new here, I know this question is probably asked 100's of times, and let me tell you I searched google, and here and spent way more time doing so than is rational. sorry in advance.

Im a car guy. I've spent the last 17years modding and driving sports cars. I have never owned, or wanted a truck. But the economy sucks, and I wanted to rid myself of the huge car payments. Thus, I bought my 02 sport. basicly to haul stuff, and get things done on the cheap (bought it for 3k).

8 months later, it's been off road, trail driving, up test hill (and every other one I could hit) at Silver lake, and stuck in a mud hole that was much......much deeper than I thought. I've had impressive amounts of fun with it bone stock. But I got bored, I have to mod something. I hate how the ass end saggs, so I ordered up some Warrior 153's. Cool. They are a great looking hunk of metal that I'm excited to slap on.

The problem:
The sleeve for the shackle bolt through the frame is of course rusted into one piece, and at 100k miles, the bushing is probably shot anyway.

Solution: new bushings, might as well do em all. Through a stupid amount of searching, I came up with the following kit from Energy suspension 4-2124. But the thread I found that in was in reference to a 94 explorer, and thus I want to verify it will work on my 02 sport with 4x4, prior to plunking down 50bucks....and more importantly prior to me torching out the old ones, rendering my explorer stuck on the hoist.
Thanks for the help.

 

[Lextech1]

several days 41views...and nothing? Lots of you had to have swapped these things by now....the project begins tomorrow, so if anyone can chime in, now would be a great time!!

 

[Lextech1]

well, the shackles are in. The bushing kit I quoted is correct for my 02 sport.
That was one biatch of a job...torching out bushings is not fun. I hope not to ever do it again.
Truck does look way better sitting level with some decent clearance in the rear. Worth the effort, but took me much longer than I planned.

 

[Mike's brother]

Hey Lextech1,

Sorry no one came along and answered your question, but I wanted to thank you for putting the answer together for the rest of us. I've got my 01 Sport up on stands now, with a box of Warrior 153s sitting on the shelf next two it. I simple cannot unfreeze those upper shackle bolts from the sleeve of the bushing. I'm going to take one more shot at superheating the bolt, and then it looks like I'll be buying/renting a ball joint press to get them out and burn out what's left.

Good to know the 4-2124 kit will give me the replacement bushings I need. Might go for the spring-eye bushings as well, since they're in the kit.

Again, thanks for plowing the road for the rest of us. :exp: