Well I thought I would bring ya'll up to date on the bushing saga.
More like nightmare.
As some of you might remember I was in search of a ball stud remover
to get my control arms off so I could get at my bushings. I ordered
one from Miller custom tools, there listed in the back of the shop
manuel, for $21. Its a very simple tool, but works very well.
So Saturday I started again with the driver side, I got both control
arms off the truck in under an hour, second times a charm. I try to
press the old bushings out of the lower control arm using a socket on
one side and a reciever pipe on the other and pressing them together
with my dads vise. I end up breaking the vise, after getting the
first bushing about half way out. They obviously don't want to come
out. So I go into the house and look up Machine shops, and there
just happens to be one close and the guy is still there. The guy
puts the whole control arm up on a hydrolic press and proceeds to
crank on it. Of course it starts bending the whole thing, so he
stops, cuts a piece of bar to support the arm and starts cranking on
it again. This time it seems to be working, but the head of the
press is too big to go into the bushing hole. So he backs off goes
and gets a deep well socket, puts that in the whole and starts again.
He has a tremendous amout of force on it when the socket slips and
rips through the steel sleeve and cracks the control arm. SHIT !!!
After I ask him if he is going to get me a new one he tells me he is
not responsible for damage, but assures me that he will do the others
for free. Yea right. Well the project for Saturday comes to a
screeching halt.
Monday I call the dealer to order a new one and find out it costs
$255, ouch. Since I could not find an aftermarket one from any of the
vendors listed in my Sport truck magazine or on the web I go ahead
and place the order and fork over my hard earned cash.
The part comes in the next day, and suprisingly has a new ball joint
and factory bushings already installed. I check with the service
manager about getting the dealer to just press out the factory ones
and put in my urethane ones. No dice. Since the urethane ones don't
come with their own steel sleeves he can't or won't do it.
I go to super shops to see what they recommend I do, and why Energy
Suspensions does not supply steel sleeves with their product. When I
get there I notice dozens of pakages hanging of the wall of Energy
Suspension bushing, all with steel sleeves. When I ask why the hell
all of them have sleeves except mine. They check and find out that
for some applications, including the Dakota, Energy Suspensions does
not supply sleeves. They refer me to a Firestone dealer down the
street who might be able to help.
The Firestone guy says the only thing he can do is burn them out, so
reluctantly I agree. It makes a mess but at least it gets rid of the
bushings.
Last night I spent about a half hour cleaning up the 2 control arms
then put the new bushings in. The bottom ones go right in, but the
top ones are a little more of a challange. Tonight I plan on
reinstalling them on the truck and taking the other side off. I'm
going to try using my little propane torch to burn those out myself.
Hopfully I am over the hump on this mod from hell. I am still
waiting for my other 2 sets to come in. The sway bar and leaf spring
bushings have yet to be sent (directly from Energy Suspension). I
ordered them 4 weeks ago. If anyone is considering getting urethane
bushings I would recomend checking with other manufactures. If only
mine had come with sleeves it would have saved me alot of headache
and at least $255.
Alan...
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