Poly leaf spring bushings

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DionR

DionR

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Due to the "new" oval track springs being junk, I am temporarily (for this summer?) swapping my old 6 leaf OEM springs back into my Duster. This forced me to replace the front eye bushings as the old ones were for a 1/2" bolt and the front spring hangers I have use a 5/8" bolt. Seemed like the easy way to do this was to drill out the rubber so I could pull out the old center and push in new poly bushings (avoids having to pay someone to press new ones in, saves time and might stiffen up the suspension some).

Question is, should the outer shell be removed as well? The instructions in the Energy Suspension kit say they must be removed, but a quick search turned up threads where (non-mopar) people did just that and then had to find a way to make up for a bunch of slop. Just a quick measurement leads me to believe I will be in the same boat if I remove the outer shell.

When I get home and have time, I will try plugging a bushing in and see how it fits but thought I would see if anyone else has any experience with this.

BTW, kit I bought was 5.2106G, for 2" spring eye with a 5/8" bolt. Everything looks to fit fine, but hate to have to lose more time trying to fix an issue I could have avoided by leaving the outer bushing in the spring.
 
Get ya about a foot of black delrin ( plastic) from McMaster-Carr or from Stock Car Steel and Aluminium in Mooresville NC ( they sell on evilbay or online).
2 1/2" or 3" o.d.
Have someone turn some out on the lathe.
Not at all hard to do. Been doing it for years on oval track cars. You can press in a steel sleeve for the bolt if you like.
Pretty simple stuff.
 
I used 1/2 to 5/8 steel bushings on the 1/2 inch bolt to take up the slop on my 5/8 spring hangers. Just cut them down to fit. Bought them at the hardware store.
 
I don’t think I was clear, sorry.

I have already removed the old bushing. I have the poly bushings in hand. And I need to install the springs by this weekend.

I did compare the new poly bushing to the existing outer shell and it doesn’t appear that the poly bushing will fit without removing the shell. Looks like the bushing is about a 1/16” too big. At the same time, the bushing looks a little undersized at 1.9375”. But I haven’t opened the package as I would like to verify my direction first.

Has anyone actually used these poly bushings from energy suspension?
 
DionR said:
Has anyone actually used these poly bushings from energy suspension?
Click to expand...
I have them in my stock springs, 2' eyes. Outer shells removed. They were a 'slip' fit. Not sloppy, but slid right in.
 
Just to follow up:

Sure enough, you guys were right. Pulled the outer shell and the poly bushings where a snug fit.

One thing I hadn't taken into account was, the outer shell actually expands the spring eye. When I got the shell out, the diameter of the eye shrunk. I wasn't expecting/planning for that.

Thanks for the input, help me out a bunch!
 
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