I felt something as I pulled into the parking lot at work and noticed something in the road in my mirror... walked over and picked up part of a really stale donut. Turns out it was a radius arm bushing.

I've never replaced one (or two) of these and figure it'll all become clear when I start. But wondered if there was any sage advice or gotchas I need to look for.

It looks like each side has 4 bolts holding it to the frame. I've read that the driver side has bolts plus 1 rivet but I'm not seeing it.

Thanks,
Marshall


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Sounds like someone replaced bushings before & replaced the rivets with bolts. Makes the job much quicker & easier for you. Just unbolt the brackets & pull off the old bushings & brkts, slip the new bushings & brkts back on in the correct order & bolt up. You're not missing the nut & washer on the outer end of one of your radius arms are you? I assumed that doughnut you found was split & fell off?

Just now looked at your pics. It obviously split & fell out.

 

Yes it had split and fallen out. All the hardware is retained.

I remember I had Ford work on it when it was about 6 or 7 years old. It looks like the passenger side bushings are new and different from the drivers side. That's weird because I read that the drivers side had the rivet but those bushing look really old; maybe original.

Not sure the lack of a rivet is saving me any time though. Seems that either Ford or some fantastic Samaritan has made 3 nut/bolt combos of 5/8" and 11/16" and 1 nut/bolt combo 18mm and 16mm. I need a deep 18mm and all I have is shallow. Don't have a 18mm wrench and there isn't room for a monkey wrench - although I don't have one is strong enough to torque down on anyway. Wah wah wah.

 

Is there a trick to making the bolts line up easily on a 1996 Bronco? I've got the bushings in place but just can't quite get the bracket holes to line up. I see threads where they "just bolt it back up and voila!" but that's not happening for me.

I've got the drivers side bracket detached from the frame. The bushing assembly is attached (but not tight) to the radius arm. The passenger side is still attached.

Is there a sweet spot to position a floor jack? Turning the steering wheel left or right? Should I have put the front up on jack stands?

 

I got it. I used a ratchet strap to pull the radius arm up towards the frame. Just had to be careful to run it under the brake lines.

Adjusted the large bushing nut to get the holes to shift front/back along the frame and finally line up one hole. Was able to get the rear-most bolt (the larger of the 4; 18mm/16mm nut/bolt combo) in.

Pushed/pulled and was able to get the single nut/bolt hole that pulls the front of the bracket up to line up and get a 2nd bolt in. As I tightened it I was able to line up the pair of horizontal nut/bolt holes and finally had my "voila" moment.

In the pics it's hard to tell from the angle but the bulk of the tension is between the radius arm and the frame. There is some tension on the drive shaft but not too much. I was thinking I needed to change it so the strap didn't touch the drive shaft but realised I could get a bolt through so I never implemented that change.

I didn't torque the bushing nut yet but I think that's the last order of business.

I also only replaced 1 side. The passenger side still looks relatively new compared to how the drivers side looked before I replaced it.

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