Well I finnally got around to changing my axle pivot bushings and I thought I would give my results.

This is not a "how to" thred as there are many allready if you do a search. In any case, I used a ball joint press and did them on the truck.

For those of you that havent done this, the bushings are made of a thin outer sleeve and a heavy inner sleeve that are joined with rubber volcanized to both.

My old bushings inner sleeves were both loose in the rubber. One I tapped out with a punch and the other I just pushed out. The rubber around the bad one was kind of torn up. It was farily easy to scrape it out with a punch leaving only the outer sleeve. I believe this bushing allowed a 1/2" of movement with very little force. The other bushing was still pretty stiff and a lot harder to remove.

The new ones were hard to install. I wanted to get neopream or some such, but I could only get stock ones on short notice. Even so, I figured that there would be a giant differnce considering what I found.

Unfortenanetlly, I could hardly tell any differnce driving it. Maybe my radius bushings are really bad. They are the only thing I dont know is good. Or maybe the handling I got is the best I can hope for with my big tires.

 

funny you mention this because i know mine got replaced about 3yrs ago. I just replaced my radius arm bushings because originals where shot. i havent noticed to much difference after putting these in either other then less brake dive. i did get the front end aligned afterwards though.