Tuesday, August 11, 2026

Rear suspension bushings replaced

 Ufda!  This took a while.


   I started on the left rear, the one with the lean, first. I jacked it all up and pulled the spring out and looked at the spring shackle pins. While OK, I felt 2 of them should be replaced with a little wear. 

So I ordered pins from Blanchards in the UK on a Friday evening. Waited until Monday to get the order confirmation and then a week to get here. I was ansy as I had a guest coming to visit.

   Whilst waiting I pounded out the old bushings and installed the new poly bushes. Did you know the 1 ton springs weigh 70 pounds each? It took around 45 min to and hour to cut and pry and pound out each of the 2 old bushings.

   The pins arrived 3 days before my guest and I got on it. Even though a warm day/evening I put the spring back on the left side and lowered the jacks. It sat well in my uneven driveway.






I used anti seize liberally on everything but the threads.

    The next day I did the right side rear. By now I had plenty of practice and things went well. Still had the pounding out the old bushes session though. I finally came up with a plan. Using my jigsaw I could cut the outer sleeve and bend it over and then pound the crap out of it until it slid out. I had the end I was working on in my vise and the free end on a board.

My arms were tired after 2 days of all this!



Here's the old bushes;



The yellow poly ones were still good, I just replaced them because now thew are all the same.

Tools clean up!


   I drove down to the mailbox and over some bumps to settle everything and then torqued all to spec.


Today I drove to get groceries and all the clunks were gone! Bumps felt like they had rounded edges not square ones. Feels good again!

Diesel fuel filters replaced

 While I was awaiting new shackle pins for the rear springs I decided to change out my diesel fuel filters. They looked pretty bad even though they worked well.



 
   I didn't write down the size of the originals and bought 10 on amazon with 5/16" ends. My originals were 3/8's. So now I got spares.

I used vise grips to clamp the hoses and my drill to unscrew the band clamps, keeping spillage to a minimum.

The new ones look great!


 

Thought I would cut one of the old ones open and see what was inside. It wasn't magnetic, so who knows.


Well, at least it's done!