The bushing are shot in my 4Runner and was wondering what solutions are there for replacing them are..How expensive is it to get a shop to do it? How easy is it to do at home?

 

Maybe a little more detail please. There are a lot of bushings in a Toyota. Some are easy. Some, not so much.

 

The bushings are the control arms and sway bar..Plus any others that are in the same category that should be replaced at the same time as the ones mentioned

 

peice of cake......

 

It's fairly straight forward. I have had to torch some of the old bushings out but other than that it's simple. Energy suspension makes a master kit to replace all the bushings. Thats probably the best choice.

http://www.energysuspension.com/pages/toyt2.html

 

Do I need any special tools or anything?? I have never done these before..I guess an impact gun is a good idea??

 

Nope no special tools are needed. Just some lubricant and a bfh to get the new bushings in place.

 

Cool thanx for the info...

Mike

 

how much of an improvement would you say the bushing kit makes? i was thinking about doing mine as well. thanks.

 

+1 on Energy Suspensions' stuff. I'm going to be doing mine soon (as soon as my rich uncle gets out of the poor house).

With 25+ years of deterioration on the control arm bushings the difference between worn out rubber and brand new urethane should be like night and day, or maybe a pillow and concrete, and should help the buggy track straight... probably straighter than it ever has. The only downside I can see would be the stiffer bushings in the suspension causing a little more 'jarring' ride. But heck, the thing already makes me want for better seats so when it comes around, I'll deal with it.

 

I was very disappointed in the urethane bushings. I had the Energy stuff also. I would suggest going with the OEM. Mine were very squeaky and stiff. The problem I had with OEM at the time was

1) cost. They were alot more than the urethane replacements and the pricing was odd. Like 3 different prices for the four bushings. i.e. $12 each for the lowers and $28.75 each for the front uppers and $63.12 for the rear uppers.(or something like that, I'm just making those numbers up to give you the general idea, but 1 pair was a lot more than all the others)

2) I got different answers from different dealers. One would sell me the 8 bushings while another said they would sell me the lowers only while the uppers required purchase of 2 new UCA's.

Still in hindsight I wish I had looked into it more because the urethane was really crappy.

 

Thats what you get with poly bushings. You can help quiet down a urethane safe grease.. but the stiffness will be there. It's not necessarily a bad thing though.