Red River T

157,500 miles on '97 GC; slight death wobble for a second or two when hitting certain bumps; ball joints, sway bar end links & bushings have been changed; decided to change control arm bushings, you can see dry-rotted, cracked rubber in some of them

If I get loan-a-tools from a parts store, does anyone have any advice / experience with them? When I did the ball joints, I used the tool from O-Reilly's and it didn't quite fit right when pressing the joint back in, ended up marring the top flange. I hope it didn't warp anything inside the joint.

I wonder if anyone does loan-a-tool on the actual Jeep / Chrysler tools.

dave1123

I've replaced the control arm bushings on a Chevy Chevelle rear end and all we did was make a hardwood block to fit between the channel flanges of the arm and use a BMFH to remove and install. We used a proper sized socket to catch just the outer flange of the bushings for the install.

Bustedback

Replace the whole arm, much easier and cheaper in the long run. You can use an air hammer to drive the bushings from the upper axle mounts and a ball joint press to install them.

Red River T

Well Bustedback, I already bought all the bushings (RockAuto) though I'm still waiting on the front lower rearward ones to arrive. I was thinking in the lowest out-of-pocket mode for now, and would like to upgrade from the sheet metal arms in the future. Need to do U-joints, headlight switch and some electrical gremlins, and probably a precautionary water pump change in the immediate future, then I think I'm going to build a rear carrier for a spare. Bought a used receiver hitch, and now that I've cleaned up the rust and painted it, I'm going to start scheming up the tire carrier. A hinge to get it out of the way of the liftgate is the question.

When I get the control arm bushings out, I plan on measuring the mount sleeves and I might try to make some arms which are much more substantial. I need to research more to see if that's really the correct thing to do. It's possible they need to be flimsy/flexible to prevent binding or something.

Bustedback

You should have saved your money on the hitch, I got a free Mopar hitch installed because of the recall last Friday.

charliec

I put polyurethane bushings in my 93 and all I did was build a fire and burned the old ones out and tapped the new ones in. You don't need to take the metal sleeves out with them. While you have the control arms out you can box in the bottom to make them alot stronger.

dave1123

I've seen boxed control arms on many drag racers and they are VERY strong.

Red River T

Wish I had seen that recall. I looked a month or so ago and didn't see that one. Oh well, $40 for a used hitch and ~$12 for primer & paint. I may check into the factory hitch and try to sell this one.

Thanks guys for the advice on hammering them out. I figured that would be futile due to the rubber absorbing the blows. As far as burning them out, I don't want to risk being stuck with a steel jacket I can't get out. I think some of the new ones I bought have steel on the outside and I thought that slid down inside the steel sleeve in the arm and axle mount. I could go out there and look at them, LOL.

I had also thought about adding material to the existing control arms to increase stiffness but they're so dang thin, it would be tricky to weld something on and I thought that if I bolt or rivet a bottom box plate on that it would probably rip / elongate the holes. I guess the best bet would be to buy XJ arms and take off the 3mm from each side (or whatever it actually is you have to grind / mill off). Well, I guess the little effort it would take to box the existing ones would be worth it, even if the boxing plates did eventually come loose.

Red River T

I went and read an earlier article about the recall and it struck me that when I was looking at how an aftermarket hitch would mount, I had the thought that "Holy Crap, this thing is like a Pinto, no structure between the bumper and the gas tank. I wonder how they got away with that." Well, they didn't get away with it after all. Unfortunately it took deaths to re-learn an old lesson.

dave1123

This was before your time, but it took a lot of years for Ford to get the gas tank out from under the seat on their pickups!

caronaxtr

I replaced the bushings on my d30 axle. It was a *****. Drilled the rubber out. Used a die grinder to cut the collar out. I used a press (ball joint remover) from Autozone to put them back in. That went pretty smooth.

Won't ever do that again. Tightened up the front end quite a bit. Really pleased with the outcome.