Bad set of RE bushings

Bad Set of Bushings from Rubicon Express

Well I had a bad set of RE bushings on my Lower Control arms. I was getting this squeak and went looking, I noticed that the bushings had squeezed out of the arms and that the arms were now rubbing against the mounts. I very painful phone call to RE customers service finally netted me a set of replacement bushing nearly a month later. Here are some pics of what I faced with the bushings. Getting them out was easy, I just pulled the rubber out of the arms, then cut the inner sleeve very carefully and pounded it out.

Here are some comparison shots of the factory arms and the bushings coming out of the RE short arms. As you can see they are clearly coming out of the arms. It appears that Rubicon Express got a bad batch of bushings that were not properly galvanized to the steel sleeves. This appears to be the same batch of bushings that JKS also had a problem with at the same time. Rubicon Express shipped me out a set of replacement bushings as soon as they were in stock. The replacement bushings were identical to the factory bushings.

Since I had pulled the lower arms out I decided to check the upper arms. I found this one with a crack in the bushing. Rubicon Express shipped me a replacement bushing for this one also. Don't really know what caused this.

Here are a couple pictures of the bushings that I ended up having to cut the metal sleeve to get out. I was unable to get them out with a press, so a quick and careful use of a hacksway and I split the metal sleeve and the sleeve came right out.

Now to get the new bushings in, I stuck them in the freezer for a couple of hours to shrink them down just slightly, I also made certain that the arms sat in the sun for a while to get nice and warm. I then used the 60ton press to push the new bushings in.

This page last updated: 10-Apr-2008

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