Radious Arm Bushing Replacing, Made Easy

[FoMoCo]

Hey all. I replaced my radious arm bushings this weekend with the Blue urethane kit from Moog (p/n 80004). The kit took about an hour to install. Simply remove the brake hoses reaching to the drums. Next, remove the castle nuts a with a 29mm hub socket. Then, attach a come-a-long to the radious arm or I-beam, and the other end the chassis. Then pull the radious arm out of the socket with the come-a-long. Place the new bushings on the radious arm and reverse the process. If you have trouble lining up the radious arm you may want to use a ratcheting strap or another puller, between the radious arms, as they tend to wander outwards. I did this anyway before pulling the radious arms to try and keep them aligned. I did this on my garage floor with hand tools, and took an hour to do. Hope this can help some one.

Nick Wilson

[cobraF100]

Thanks for the Good Tip and How to..........

[shrektruck]

I can't believe you did that job in your garage without the special tool from our sponsor!! Your post will be deleted and you will be banished from.....
Crap! I thought Iwas over at FTE. Sorry.
Good info!

[willowbilly3]

Thanks for the tech tip. I always torched off the rivets from the frame mounts and bolted them back on with grade 8 bolts. You idea sounds better.

[lobuck76]

I guess I haven't changed any that I didn't have the I beams out anyway. Except for my bronco. I changed them awhile back. One side was riveted and the other side was bolted. I cut the rivets with an air chisel and drilled to the next bigger size, I think 7/16. And put back with grade 8 bolts.

[NM5K]

Dunno...Myself, I still prefer to just pull the axle. I've tried the come-along
method once, and it took so much forward force, that it buggered up my axle
pivot bushing on that side. I then had to change that bushing. Try getting one of those in and out on the truck. Oh what fun.... I always pull the axles now. It doesn't really take much longer than the come-along method.
I don't cut the bolts, etc, as to me, that takes about as much work as pulling the axle also.. With a lil practice, you can yank the axles on those pretty fast.
MK