dewman

The radius arm bushing, on the driver's side of my truck, broke apart yesterday. The radius arm is fine, just the bushing is missing. I bought the replacement kit from AdvanceAutoParts, it's from Moog. I will be working on it tomorrow and I will post pics of the job as I do it. I got lucky on my truck because the radius arm bracket is bolted on, not riveted. I just need to remove the locking nut from the radius arm and unbolt the bracket and replace the bushing. And then put it all back together.

Wish me luck!

Just call me Sean

iTrader: (1)

Good luck.

Mercury5.0

I had to have both of my radius arm brackets replaced on my '96. I was told that is was rare to have to work on the driver's side... I guess it must be fairly common. GL.

dewman

Not sure how common a repair this is, but the front part of the bushing disintegrated and was making a nasty clanking noise. The job took me, not a professional mechanic, about 1 1/2 hours to complete. I had to take the truck to a local shop because I could not get the retaining nut off the radius arm. It had rusted on too tight, even PB Blaster would not loosen it. They had to hit it with a torch before the impact wrench would remove it. According to the Haynes manual, the radius arm bracket is sometimes riveted to the frame, in which case, they instruct you to remove the radius arm from the axle and slide it out of the bracket. That would involve removing the sway bar, coil spring balljoints from the truck before you could remove the radius arm. I got lucky, the radius arm brackets on my truck are bolted on. I didn't need to jack the truck up, just crawl under and start removing bolts. I did use a floor jack to lift the radius arm so I could install the new bushing and line up the bolts for reinstallation. The pics below are before and after.

DB208508

Just a quick question or two....what happens if the radius arms are bad and you don't replace them? I have a slight clunking noise from the front end on both sides (depending on which side hits a bump) would this be the radius arms?

Lobo

Sounds like it may be.. besides tire wear, excess suspension wear or breakage is possible..

Jamesb53191

My tie rod bushings (im guessing) where the power steering meets the tie rod are pretty flatened out and have grease every where. What kind of kit should I look for to replace them?

Lobo

Energy Suspension makes some really good kits.. Rancho is another..

www.EnergySuspensionParts.com

www.gorancho.com

Just call me Sean

iTrader: (1)

The pitman arm is bolted to the steering box, and doesn't wear out. The drag link bolts to the pitman arm, so you would need a new drag link.

dewman

It could just be the bushings going bad. When the bushing fell apart on the radius arm on my truck, it made a clunking noise over bumps too. Since I installed the new bushing, no more noise!