Sway Bar Bushings

Jdub: Since its your bus, I would have thought that the unusual tire wear would be on the drivers' side.

King,

There has been a serious taco drought along the Texas gulf coast, so the only folks living large around here are the government employees (see Loc McNew). I'm probably going to have to sell some aluminum cans to pay for this bushing job.

JDUB

I was amazed at how much the new sway bar bushings tightened up the ride on mine when I had them replaced. One of the few times I had work done on a vehicle where you can actually feel a difference.

We arrived last night at Prevost Nashville. This new Prevost facility is the nicest I've seen anywhere in the nation. The floors are spotless, the mechanics are great and it doesn't get much better than being able to free walk under your bus for extended inspections. I knew coming in that I needed front link (dogbone) busings but to my surprise the rears were bad too.

http://swaimquest.com/images/frt%20p...0tore%20up.JPG

all bushings that were removed were poly and had wore crumbled and sin some cases fell out in three years and 20K miles. For that reason, I decided to go back to rubber bushings.

http://swaimquest.com/images/new%20rubber%20bushing.JPG

I've heard that trucks enjoy extended life from poly but since we squat our bus when leveling it, I feel it destorts the poly bushings beyond their capability making them prematurely fall apart. When the dogbones were all back in place squating the bus put a bind on the rubber but didn'tt permanently distort the bushing when back up to ride height. Only time will tell if it oulasts the poly.
:confused:

Our suspension travel does not cause the problems. Rob Russell's entertainer coaches all have leveling systems and they are leveled every night when on the road. Since his are averaging over 400,000 miles before replacement he does not think it is a leveling or number of cycles issue, but of the material aging out.

Roger and I had a lengthy discussion with Rob about this issue and the only conclusion that we could come up with regarding the ridiculously short miles on our coaches to failure of the bushings may be age.

Here is a picture of one of the lower front sway bar link bushings removed from my bus, all of the link bushings top and bottom were completely intact no cracks, torn or missing sections. The bushing bores were elliptical from center to one side and the bushing on the other side of the link was also elliptical from center but indexed 180 degrees, similar to the top right and bottom left of an hour glass.
I'll leave it to the mob to decide what caused this.
Note: this bus it was driven only 900 miles in 5 years prior to our purchase, we fixed that we are at 20K in about a year and a half.

Gary,
From your pictures it looks like a two piece bushing was installed and you replaced them with a different style, possibly a one piece bushing - is that correct? Had they been replaced before or were they original to your coach?

Could weight be an issue here, causing torque on the bolts going through the bushings. What is the difference in an entertainers coaches weight and a MH coach?

Another thing, these product could be like tires in that if they are not flexing causing the oils to redistribute from use they dry out and crack.

I learned from Prevost Parts there are two types of bushings available. The poly ones which are two peice for ease of installation & are red in color. The other type are rubber and are one peice, these are black. Although oils and such can cause rubber to prematurely breakdown in commercial duty service, I chose to go with rubber. The reason being, I suspect lowering our bus at weird angles during leveling puts a lot of stress on the bushings. I suspect rubber will flex better and allow the bushings to accept this stress better. I've just completed a full independent wheel weighing of my bus, so weight was not the culprit. I am however surprised that the right side of my non-slide bus is heavier by 700 pounds than the left. My generator is on one side and the batteries are directly across from them so that isn't the culprit. My front storage bay is practically empty so that has no affect either. I'm at a loss why the weight differencial. My tire wear is perfectly even and the handling is great so I'm not all that worried about this.

The failed poly busings in my bus were only 3 years old with 30K miles on them. I didn't put these miles on them so I can't tell you what they were like. I can tell you it was a professional truck driver that did put those miles on and he parked where the incline wasn't all that severe but lowered the bus to the ground during stops. In any case, I've replaced all of my bushings with the one peice rubber front and rear, so I will see what happens and report to all my findings.