Been Searching And Reading For A Couple Of Days On This. '97 250 Cc Psd,ttb Axles, Over 8500 Gvwr, 4x4. I Am Going To Replace The Front Leaf Spring Bushings. I Have No Garage And I Am Going To Have To Do It At Work In One Shot And With Only About 4-5 Hours And An Occsional Set Of Extra Hands. Can I Do Just The Front Ones (shackel Upper And Lower) With The Rear Of The Spring Still Mounted To The Frame And The U-bolts Still On Axle? The Rear Bushings Seam To Be Fine And As Stated Before My Shop Time Is Limited. Will The Bolts Be Reusable, And How Hard The New Bushings To Get In? My Plan Is To Raise And Support On The Frame Rails Then Use The Jack To To Take The Axle/wheel Hanging Weight Off The Spring For Removal. Thanks Before Hand, I Know You Guys Know What I Need Do.

 

All I know is my experience from doing this on a '91 F250. You mileage may vary.

I had to burn the factory bushings out of the spring - they have a metal sleeve molded into the bushing, that the bolt goes through. Wasn't any other way to remove them, and I wasn't doing this while the spring was on the truck. It took a bit of time with the propane torch to get it started burning, and in a couple cases the metal sleeve popped out and flew 20', with flaming bushing material attached. Lots of smoke, looked like a medieval battle scene from the movies.

I wanted to avoid removing the spring, but once I started the disassembly I concluded that the spring needed removing, as there was no way to drop the front down enough to get the parts off, while leaving the rear of the spring attached.

I did all four springs over a weekend.

 

was the bolt siezed into the metal sleeve? in my experience with other bushing applications I have seen that.

 

Hey...I am going to the same thing, replacing all four leave spring bushings, but...burning the existing ones? what about using the pully tool? Would that work pushing out them?

 

if they are siezed in there and you push/pull them out, they will probably just tear and you will have to burn the rest out, but it depends how long they have been in there getting weathered. I work for CAT. when we pull engines, the motor mounts have a rubber bushing/metal sleeve set up and most of the time the rubber tears and then the sleeve is siezed to the bolt and out comes the torch. penetrating oil frequently a couple of days before project time is a good idea. that is what I am doing. i hope for some more advice, we'll see how it goes.

 

I burned mine out too.Not as hard as it seems.I removed the springs it made it easier laying the spring flat and hitting it out after burning.The replacement came in 2 pieces with a bushing .Slid right in.

 

The bolts came out of the sleeves fine. The sleeve, the bushing, the spring eye - these three things were effectively 'one piece'. Just like the Cat motor mount example given above.

I kept the sleeves from the factory setup. They are very hard steel, I could only cut them with an abrasive wheel, they knocked the teeth off a sawsall blade like it was plastic. They made excellent frame sleeves for when I made a steering box brace for my Jeep, and didn't want to crush the frame when bolting through it. I never throw anything away, that's why my 1000 sq. ft. garage if pretty full after 10 years.

 

update: last night in a well equipped shop (plenty of room, rags, shop air, water hose and oxy/acet torch) i replaced the front springs front shackle bushings left and right top and bottom in 3 1/2 hours.
-raised and supported truck with jack stands on frame rails high enough for both front wheels to be off the ground and removed wheels.
-i have ttb front end so i could do this one side at a time-supported weight of left side axle/hub with jack. raised jack just enough so that it held the weight and did not compress the spring.
-unbolted spring from shackle with 1/2 impact wrench. took a little bit of hammering to bet bolt out. also had to adjust jack height to take pressure off bolt.
-unbolted shackle from frame.
-torched out old bushing from spring eye,heated for about 3-5 minutes on both sides then pounded out with drift (now covered in melted rubber)
-continued to heat spring eye, had to get real hot in order to pound out old metal sleeve that goes around the outside of the bushing
-did the same for small upper bushing in shackle.
-if new bushings dont slide or beat in easily, use old sleeves, the ones that were on the outside of the bushings as drivers to beat in the new ones.
-reassembled everthing, took minimal fighting and prying to get shackles and springs back in place to line up bolts
-antisieze everything
was surprised at how smooth and easy things went

 

forgot something, i did lower the jack after unbolting spring to bring spring away from truck for working room, had plenty of space to torch and hammer