How much suspension diasassembly is required to replace the radius arm bushings on a '76 F-150?

 

I am in the middle of doing this on my 80 F-100. Same basic setup from 73-96 I believe. In answer I had to remove the brake caliper,coil spring,shock absorbers and loosen the nut that holds the radius arm to the I-Beam. Sounds like alot but only took me about 1.5 hours and most of a can of penetrating oil. It is not too bad to do just make sure and check the brackets that attach to the frame I found where a previous owner had not bothered to change the bushings when they wore out. It had put a groove in one of the frame mounts. Oh well what do I expect on a $400 truck.good luck just take your time and it is not that bad. By the way most of the trucks I have worked on the nuts are 1 1/8". Hope this helps. Mike
:7

 

Thanks. That gives me a good idea of what I'm in for.

 

Matt, There are two ways to do it, you drop the I-beams and pull the arms out of the socket, or new to me, remove the bolts and cut the rivit on the socket and replace the bushings, and bolt it back up with class 8 bolts.

I don't see the need to pull the brakes if you pull the I-beams.
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I second John's post. I did mine ('79 2WD) over a year ago and it was quite easy. It's a bit more difficult if the brackets have rivit fasteners - break out the grinder. If the brackets are held in by bolts, support the front end - not by the I-beams, and pull the brackets - piece of cake. Buy the polyurethane bushings.

 

I did mine this past weekend, along with the pivot bushings. Used polyurethane, and I did remove the caliper because the brake line was too short to allow me to move the parts back into position. I am a slow worker, took time to clean up 25 years of crud, inspected the front suspension and brake parts, so it took me several hours altogether.

Although each rear radius arm bracket had 3 or 4 rivets, I did not remove them and replace them with bolts. Maybe I should have, but I ran out of time and energy.

Andy