I need to replace my radius arm bushings. I searched pretty hard on this site and didn't find much in the ranger end. I'm doing it on a 4x4 Ranger and am wondering, do you have to remove the spring in order to do this? Or can someone point me to an article/thread about the procedure involved. My Chilton's seems pretty poor on describing the steps in doing this.

 

My 1989 book says....

Loosen the pivot bolt...
loosen the top shock bolt and compress the shock, remove the radius arm bolt, washer, remove the insulator outer shield (right side only) and spacer....
move the arm forward out of the bracket, remove inner insulator and retainer.

 

Maybe it's different, but my 92 Explorer required the spring removal.

I started by jacking it up and letting the axle sag, remove the shock to let it sag even further. Remove the brake caliper and tie it up. I have a stabilizer bar which required removal. I think I was lucky in that I was able to use an open end wrench to remove the big nut at the bottom that holds the spring in place. The I-beams are stiff enough that I had to use a come-a-long to pull the radius arms out of the rear bracket. (removing the arm pivot bolt didn't really help). The come-a-long was needed to pull the I-beams back into position.

You should find a few articles on the Explorer threads here on FTE. They should be similar to your Ranger. You'll see some suggestions to drill out the rivets on the rear bracket and just pull out the arms that way. Several have done this with success and they replaced the rivets with grade 8 or harder bolts. The advantage of this is that you don't have to mess with your front end parts. Personally, I wasn't comfortable with this and just did it the "hard" way. I spent about 3 hours on the first one I did (the right side) and about an hour and a half on the other side after learning how to do things.

If you're wondering about using the come-a-long, I wondered too, but was reassured by reading several posts on the procedure. It won't bend the beam if everything is clear and the I-beam is allowed to sag far enough.

Hope this helps

 

How much tension is the spring under, or moreover, is it dangerous to remove without compressing it? I've never removed a spring so am not sure if this is a safe procedure without compressing it with a special tool or something.

 

With my Explorer, and the jack stand on the frame just behind the rear radius arm bracket, plus with the shock removed, there is no tension (or compression) on the spring. You should be able to wiggle the spring a little to confirm this. The spring is held on to the axle beam with the big nut and washer. At the top of the spring, it sort of floats on some rubber type pads. With the spring relaxed, this should be a little loose at the top. Your vehicle might retain the spring at the bottom in a different manner. However it's mounted, it should still be loose enough to wiggle in place before you remove anything to verify it's relaxed.

Another thing I wondered about was pulling the drivers side beam forward enough to clear the rear mount with the front drive line still attached. Apparantly the slip joint in the drive line is long enough, since I didn't have to do anything here.

Good luck.

 

Dang, well I jacked up the rig today and pulled the tire. Pulled the shock. Went to losen the nut holding the spring and have nothing big enough or maneuverable enough to get into that tight of a space. I guess a trip to Sear's is in line to get some bigger open end wrenches. Biggest I have is 7/8 and it wasn't quite big enough.

 

I'm not 100 percent sure, but I think it was a 1 1/8" nut. You can't exactly get on it straight, but like I said, I think I was a little lucky taking it off. Hope you are too!