Dakar Leaf Pack Bushing Fix
I started having some weird popping noises coming from the back end of the tuck every time I backed down the driveway or turned over a drainage dip in the road. I figured it was my rear leaf spring bushing as they were getting pretty old with it being a second hand leaf pack. I had replaced the front bushings on install and decided to hold off on the rears because they were in pretty good shape.
So after tearing down the leaf pack I found the rears to still be in good condition surprisingly, but the brand new fronts I had installed 5K miles ago were worn out of shape and trashed. After some research I found that with the front bushing eyes on these springs there is a gap that the bushing like to try to escape out of, and sure enough mine were doing the same thing.
This was only after 5K miles, another 5K and these would have failed completely. I didn't want to be replacing bushing every 5K miles either as its a pain in the ass. My solution was to weld the bushing eye closed to remove the gap that bushings were being forced into. Just had to remove some rust and used sand paper to clean the gap out with and boom proplem solved.
Not the prettiest welds, I ran some more beads and cleaned them up after the picture but you get the idea.
I started having some weird popping noises coming from the back end of the tuck every time I backed down the driveway or turned over a drainage dip in the road. I figured it was my rear leaf spring bushing as they were getting pretty old with it being a second hand leaf pack. I had replaced the front bushings on install and decided to hold off on the rears because they were in pretty good shape.
So after tearing down the leaf pack I found the rears to still be in good condition surprisingly, but the brand new fronts I had installed 5K miles ago were worn out of shape and trashed. After some research I found that with the front bushing eyes on these springs there is a gap that the bushing like to try to escape out of, and sure enough mine were doing the same thing.
This was only after 5K miles, another 5K and these would have failed completely. I didn't want to be replacing bushing every 5K miles either as its a pain in the ass. My solution was to weld the bushing eye closed to remove the gap that bushings were being forced into. Just had to remove some rust and used sand paper to clean the gap out with and boom proplem solved.
Not the prettiest welds, I ran some more beads and cleaned them up after the picture but you get the idea.
