Mariner

Well, I thought I'd post a follow up on all of this. First I finally solved the noise issue once and for all. It turns out it was a bad right front wheel bearing. It came back and I noticed that it changed frequency as the truck went faster or slower. I pretty much isolated the to the right side. A close inspection of the rotor on the right side showed a small amount of grease around the spindle nut. The left side was clean. I went on the assumption that the grease seal had failed and compromised the bearing. This turned out to be correct. Replacing the rotor/hub/bearing assembly fixed the problem completely.

Now on to my bushing install;

1. Chock rear wheels, set brake, get the vehicle on jack stands and remove the tires.
2. Remove the brake caliper.



Remove the ABS sensor


I hang my calipers from the sway bar with tie wraps.


3. I removed the steering knuckle by disconnecting the outer tie rod end, unbolting the upper and lower ball joints, tapping with a hammer to loosen while supporting the lower control arm with my jack. When all was loose I had an assistant lower the jack while I took the nuts off the ball joints and removed the knuckle setting it aside.

4. Unbolt the sway bar link nut and the lower shock bolt.


5. Loosen the control arm bolts and remove the control arm. In the picture below you can see the rubber splitting on the bushing.



6. I took the control arms to the shop that does my alignments. The charged me 1 hour of shop labor for each control arm (standard rate from right off their billing software) to remove and press in the new bushings.

7. Installation is pretty much the reverse of dis-assembly. I used some of the grease included with the bushings on the bolts and on the bushings themselves to help them slide in as it was a tight fit. The bolt holes are slotted so I tried my best tighten the bolts on the old makings or impressions left there from the original install.


And the finished product.


I'm sorry I didn't get as many detailed picture as I could have but hopefully this will help someone else out who might be thinking of tackling the job. Also on some fasteners the torque specs were out of the range of my torque wrench. They were big bolts so I just pulled as hard as I could on my breaker bar. I'm not anticipating any problems from this.

Lets hope everything decides to stay fixed now.

papa tiger

Brgs can be a nut to figure out sometimes. Spinning without a load on them can be deceiving. You have helped many people. Brg design has changed the way load is transmitted. All of em look at wheel bearing first, problem with the stuff now is you can't visually see much unless it is really cooked, wheel fell off you on the shoulder of the road. Road kill usually is obvious huh. Way to hang in there, you gradually eliminated the worn problems. The Brgs probably caused some of the wear and tear. Vibration is hard on stuff. Good work.

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