Having a bad couple days. Things are at a standstill. I did call Energy suspension yesterday. Less than 5% of their black poly kits have graphite and the kit I have 5.2119G does NOT have it.

 

I wanted to follow up on this. Sorry for the delay, life kinda got in the way for a while, but I did get it back together.

The Bushing kit from Energy Suspension for 3" wide springs said to remove the outer sleeves from the factory bushings before installing the new ones. Well, the new black bushing were a loose fit. So much so the truck would never have driven right. I measured the bushings and spring eyes. 1.65 for the bushings and 1.82 or so for the spring eyes. I called ES back and they said I should not have removed the sleeves. Um, directions said otherwise. The mailed me new bushings to fit the eye diameter of the springs under warranty. The new red bushings fit properly but the new sleeves did not. Too loose and too long. Luckily, I was able to use the sleeves from the original kit. The new bushings were wider and fit end to end when installed, so at this point I gave up on the whole greaseable spring eye thing and just got the truck back together using the Formula 5 grease.

Blasted the areas of the frame that needed it. POR15 and top coated. New Mopar hardware and shackles with the bushings, new shocks, 3rd gen brake upgrade with new parking brake pads, hardware and cables. Refreshed and reinstalled the gooseneck hitch. New bushings and links for the sway bar. Upgraded the overload springs to the dual leaf set the Cummins trucks get. New rear exhaust hanger with new rubber isolaters at all locations.

It drives soooo much better. It just took far longer than I planned.

 

Looks good. Shouldn't squat much with a load either.

 

I haven't put a load on it yet. I want to run it a bit and retorque everything first. It drives a lot better than before. The other bushing must have been far worse than they looked.

Oh yeah.... New fuel tank straps and Spicer u-joints too.

 

I need tank straps for a '96 CTD extra cab. Where did you source yours? I was maybe gonna check Geno's.....

 

I got both my sets at Advance Auto. They had 'em on the shelf..... I had to replace the rear strap on both my 2nd gens. They both rusted and broke. I still have two brand new front straps though.

 

Yep, Geno's. I picked up a number of items from them for the update.

 

Looking good. Shackles are new I take it, looks like you are running rubber in there?

Spring bushings are actually next on my list, just started making some clunking noises and the rubber is oozing out a bit. They lasted nearly 30 years so I figured why not just replace with the same which I believe is 1.75" with the metal sleeve (best I can measure). RB136 for the 1500 trucks with 2.5" spring. Years ago I had seen new urethane rack bushings just degrade, crack and crumble over a short time, so a bit apprehensive, that said I have had greaseable urethane bushings in the front control arms for years with no issues. Maybe plastic rheology has improved since. Still waffling about it. The size issue is a bummer, I would hate to have a job half done waiting on parts, also they are now custom so replacing in future, if ever needed, may be interesting. Such is aftermarket stuff, I guess.

 

Thank you. Yes those are new Mopar (52038664) shackles with rubber bushings. Like you said, the originals lasted quite a few years and I wasn't up to the effort of replacing them.

I have the part numbers for the red replacement bushings so if I have issues down the road I can order more. The Energy Suspension Guy was really nice to deal with. We were on the phone quite a while as he looked up sizes and inserts. We double checked the spring eyes several times to be sure of sizes. He sent them out priority thursday from Cal, and I had them saturday in NH.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it came out. I do about 5-6k a year with the truck and I'm at 165k now, so it should last as long as I need it to.

 

I realize this post is like 4 months old but i am in the process of replacing my Rear leaf bushings as well as Front upper and lower control arm bushings ( F&R Sway bars also) Got the complete Kit for my 2000 Durango 4X4 and was thinking the exact same thing adding zerks to the rear Leaf's and Shackle as well as the lower control arm bushings I have some pics showing slots/grooves in my bushings as well as the gap between the 2 piece bushings when installed according to the sleeve length but ill have to upload those in a few min

Shackle bush no groove

Gap once installed via sleeve length

Grooves Lower control arm

Grooves Rear spring Bushing

Groove upper control arm bushing
As you can see the leaf bushings and Upper and lower control arm bushings have grooves/slots in them to allow grease to actually move from middle to outer if had a way to add grease, I found the same thing on the outer front sway bar bushings as well as both front and rear sway bar mounts have a slit tp allow to be installed where i could drill a small groove aligned with a zerk to also grease them as well The upper ones though i will have to modify a grease needle to get into the slotted area as adding a zerk does not seem feasible