Rebulding entire front end on 97 Ranger

[bigdan002001]

I am in the process of tearing everything apart...buffing/sanding beams and everything and painting everything on the front end of my truck with the D35. I am now reassembling things and put my new radius arm bushings on the passengers side first and bolt it to beam, then put it thru the bracket and started the nut...put the other end of the beam up and anchored it thur the beam support bracket. Now that I have simply snugged up the radius arm nut, the beam is very stiff and I cannot shove it up or down very much at all. There is no way I will be able to reinstall the coil springs let alone my new taller leveling springs. I bought the hard plastic high temp bushings from napa for the radius arm and was wondering if this was a mistake and not allowing me to have any movement on my axle beam to let it flex down enough to slide in the coil? The beam currently is only about 1" below the bumpstop...so it is very high....should I swap out the new bushings for some new rubber ones instead or just loosen up the radius arm to allow assembly? Will these bushings pop and make a lot of noise too? If so, I might just go ahead and buy some new rubber ones...

Thanks,
BigDan

 

[bigdan002001]

No-one has had any experience with the new thermoplastic radius arm bushings? I just wanna know whether or not to go to Ford and buy the inner/outer rubber bushings instead of the ones I bought at Napa....

BigDan

 

[railman]

i bought the ones from NAPA that are kinda white in color....

i just started the nut on the radius arm to leave some "slack" while reassembling the rest of the front....

after i got the springs and all re-installed i then tightened up the radius arm nut.....

i like the poly bushings and they have outlasted the rubber ones by far.....( my last set of rubber ones only lasted 6 months with the wheeling i do )

l8r, John

 

[Ranger44]

Most of the time I have to persuade the beam down. Either by stepping on it or pushing it down.

In order to easily install my leveling coils I had to take my pry bar and place it under the top of the coil bucket and over my coil spring and pry down while simultainously pushing the spring in with my foot.

Or just rent a spring compressor.

 

[bigdan002001]

Yeah railman they are an off white color...I was just wondering if they made any noise or not? I did loosen up the nut til it's almost completely off and it did lower the beam way down, but still not enough and even pushing on the beam it really don't move all that much. I do have a set of spring compressors already, but the coils thread into the upper buckets and hope the compressors don't get in the way when twisting them into position? Thanks for the responses guys...

BigDan

 

[4x4junkie]

If those are anything like a set of bushings I wound up with from a local Carquest a few years back (they were a rather hardish plastic bushing having a light brown color), I'd take them back and get something else. I just couldn't possibly see them holding their shape over time (not to mention the lack of flex as you've already found, which might even cause the mounts to fatigue).

I went with Energy Suspension poly bushings.