Spring perch bushings

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moparker

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Is this a job that shoild be done by a spring shop or can it be done at home.
 
Prothane bushings. They have em in black too. On the fwd eye, using a bernsonatic torch, burn out the rubber and inner sleeve and leave the outer pressed in shell intact on the spring. Grease up the 2 poly bushing halves and the new inner sleeve and press them in. They should go in pretty easy. If they are a little tough press the bushings first, then the new inner sleeve second. 2 small squares of plywood and a large C clamp works well.

Theres 2 different diameter FWD spring eye bolts. The larger more common bolt I believe is 5/8" but may be different. if you have the smaller bolt, you can easily drill the FWD perches with a step drill bit to the larger size and just get the larger bolts. Rear shackle bushings are not sleeved. Heres pix, I enlarged mine to accept the larger bolt.

Hope this helps
Matt

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Matt nailed it. This is the best and easiest way to do it. Not hard at all. Grease the prothane bushings good when you assemble it good too, sometimes they can
squeak.
 
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Matt, did you take the springs completely off or do the fronts hook them up then do the rear?
 
You can remove them, or drop the fronts, do the bushings, then drop the rears. Easiest way to drop the fronts is remove the 4 nuts on each perch and drop em out. The bolts are long enough that they will hit the inside of the rockers before they clear.
 
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I had to remove the spring eye bolts on the fronts. These bolts were installed from the outside, this allowed the bold threads to extend into the frame. Mine were impossible to drop right out.
If the nuts are on the outside > easy will drop out
I posted my hassle in a thread just last week on here. Have fun
 
I had to remove the spring eye bolts on the fronts. These bolts were installed from the outside, this allowed the bold threads to extend into the frame. Mine were impossible to drop right out.
If the nuts are on the outside > easy will drop out
I posted my hassle in a thread just last week on here. Have fun
If the nuts are on the outside the bolt is against the framerail side with about 1/8" clearance to the frame. It's not gonna go anywhere once the nut is off unless your framerails have access holes in them for the bolt. I never seen an A body with those. If the nuts are on the framerail side the bolt is too long and will hit the back side of the rocker before you can get it out. Remove the 4 nuts on each perch then pry them out of the frame. Once the perches are lowered down then you can get those fwd spring eye bolts out.
 
In my case/situation
Bolt head on outside, nut against frame, bolt extended into frame both sides
I had to loosen the bushing bolt (both sides) to retract bolt from inside frame
Didn't have to remove them
the bolt protruding into frame on both sides acted as hooks

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in my case, see pic, nut against frame, nuts were removed from backside of perch, I could not pry the perch from the mounting pad
other option was to remove u bolts and remove one spring
Now I'm not sure on other cars but there is a hole in frame where the bolt extended into frame-looked like 3\4 "
Only wanted the OP to note which way the eye bolt was installed that would give him an idea of how hard the job would be.
 
If you were able to wiggle the bolt out, good on you seriously. I tried this w my sons car, could not get the bolt out. It hit the back side of the rocker before it would come out. I had to take the perches down to get the bolts out. Figured they were all that way. I plan on putting the bolts back in with the nut side facing out, then put the perches up and in. This makes for a built in bolt keeper. If for some reason the nuts back off, which they should not do on mine since they are stove nuts. But if they did, the framerails will keep the bolts from rattling all the way out.
 
I didn't have to pull the bolt out
I just used backed it out enough so it was flush with nut and out of frame
The nut pushed the bolt out of the bushing as I loosened it, wasn't easy, soaked with kroil overnite then used a floor jack on my ratchet for leverage while wedging open end wrench on the nut against the frame jacked away repeat 30+times until bolt backed out of frame say 1"
then repeat on other side then rotated the perch with tire iron and out she came
took some time but easy way out for this ol fart and about 1 foot clearance, and no lift LOL
I did have the on a wood dolly check out my Q/A thread And thanks to the replies from members got it out in about an hour and only a little sore that nite LOL
 
Got the leaf spring down. The bushing doesnt seem bad. Should it be loose or, is it only gonna act up under strain?
 
Ok. I see what the noise was from. I think the bushing had been replaced with one with a larger I.D. So the bolt was flopin around in there.
 
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