Does control arm bushing composition affect ride quality or NVH?
- Thread starter bobthetj03
- Start date
They are just fine upto a 4" lift. Fixed length aftermarket tj lower arms are 16". Stock are 15.75". Use stock length, 14.75 "adjustable" uppers and you still have decent caster. Add a set of square re1478 cams and you have excellent caster and can still run a 33" tire under a stock fender without having an upper control arm 1/4" shorter than stock.
I used synergy ddb bushings religiously for 3 years. After 1 year, I was replacing bushings at an alarming rate and ceased using them completely 2 years later. After 2 more years I stopped having to warranty bushings. It wasn't just a few, I'd built hundreds of arms. I don't buy into the bad batch excuse. There have been plenty of ranch, Clayton and ready lift bushings that have been swapped out here as well, no just synergy.
YIKES! No Bueno … perhaps I’ll end my quest. I had high hopes for these. I was even going to source a pair for the rear of my corvette (uses a trailing arm with 3 axes of movement) … I was convinced these were the future. But I guess the polyurethane material is just not suited to constant movement. Makes me appreciate Mother Nature and the rubber she provides like nectar to our hobby
. This sort of gives credit to the Currie Johnny joint in that the isolator material is not required to move, stretch or really compress a whole lot. (This is going to get me a lot of “I told you so”s)
To be clear, were these the original recipe or the “improved” units with the tension ring on the ends of the bushing?
Right! I lifted 2 Gladiators and thought these bushings were great. They’re just normal rubber bushings tho. I “thought” the polyurethane of the DDB bushing plus the free rotation of the sleeve would get us a bushing that will live forever, not degrade as it ages and offer bind free motion along all axes. NOPE! (Or so it seems)
And yea those bolts for the JT/LJ control arms are MASSIVE! And need MASSIVE torque. 1” nut and 200ft/lbs or something like that … NUTS
I can't believe I missed the updates on this thread. Is that the Mopar performance DDB or the standard JL bushing. I thought the Mopar bushing had a free inner sleeve like the Synergy. Now I'm confused
NO! The Mopar performance bushing is fused between the outer shell and the inner sleeve. It just has recesses on the side that allow more deflection. Coincidentally it looks like DDB bushing … and yes I’ve had BOTH.
going strong
If metal cloak were fused to the outer shell so they can't squeak and squak like a hiem joint, I would likely be using them instead of the JK and jl bushings. I have yet to get my hands on the rock krawler adventure joints yet.
They're taking their sweet time making them available as service/builder parts. I've been hounding them for 6 months or more.
I'm probably gonna end up with an amalgamation of joints under mine, with synergy, Metalcloak, and adventure in various locations depending on which one is the most practically retrofit in each location. Though your comment on Metalcloak gives me pause on them, since the whole point of the exercise is to not have to grease my Johnny joints 1-2x/year to keep them quiet.
we can't even grease the mc joint with grease let alone use a grease gun. They have to be disassembled, cleaned and then spread the lip balm on them with your finger that they send you, which was about 4 times a year for me on one of my personal rigs running 12" travel shocks I had put them in. I became pretty disgruntled about that. every single rig that comes in my shop with mc joints makes noise from the control arm joints. 4hour plus labor for a service is pretty ridiculous when we can grease 16 currie control arm joints, tie rod, drag link and ball joints before the engine oil stops draining out.
You'll have to let me in on your secret with the Currie joints. None of mine take grease through the zerk; I have to pull them and press them out, clean them up, grease and reassemble so it's much more like the process you go through with MC.
I was thinking of using MCs in two spots because they have a kit that goes into a Johnny Joints housing which is much less expensive than replacing the housing or the arm. Might just keep JJs there and at least I won't have as many to take apart.