Seat Bushings

BonesXX

TJ Enthusiast
Supporting Member
Joined
Sep 21, 2020
Messages
421
Location
Atlanta, GA
Anybody tried these? Although my seats don’t wobble all the bushings are missing.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08D72MQB7/?tag=wranglerorg-20

1602177502767.jpeg
 
I would be concerned about longevity. These are 3D printed which can be a worry depending on the type of plastic they printed with.

In terms of price they seem a bit high for a simple 3D printed part. That's like .03-15 cents of plastic and maybe 30 minutes in a printer.
 
Wow, that's pretty pricey for some simple 3D printed parts. My driver seat is a little wobbly - are these bushings the reason? Is there a resource or write-up about this? I might need to model and print some of these. I already printed replacement shims for my Bestop rear seat after I broke the original plastic pieces.

IMG_20200914_211628148_2.jpg
 
After a pretty exhaustive search, the forum consensus is that "Stable Seat" on Etsy is a good alternative. Although they are 3D printed, which is still not great, no one has had anything bad to say about them.

That being said, I have used 3D printed parts in the past in my Jeep and internal temps can sometimes creep into the yield temp of the plastic and they will deform into a goopy state and retail that when cooled. Also ABS and PLA do not hold up well to friction very well, and PLA hates water. Neither are great for this app, but if they are Nylon then it may hold up well to the wear, but again it doesn't like water.

There have been a few who make these bushing themselves out of Delrin (I think this is the way to go in the case of homebrew), but you would need access to a lathe or machine shop to do that. (driving up cost)

One guy found a flanged bushing/washer thing at Ace hardware that worked after minor tweaking, link provided below.

https://wranglertjforum.com/threads/seat-noise.9145/
My final opinion is go with Stable Seat as it is a proven brand and there haven't been any bad reviews that I could find. The amazon link above only has one review and its poor.

https://wranglertjforum.com/threads/product-review-stable-seat.11070/
 
I dont know about others, but my passenger seat tends to squeak like a MF when theres no weight on it. I just ordered the ones from etsy and hopefully that will fix it.
 
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Already ordered the ones from above. For $20 I’ll test them and check back in. FWIW these have 7 ratings for 4.1 stars total. The one review said the lower bushing didn’t fit properly. If they don’t I will send them back.
 
After a pretty exhaustive search, the forum consensus is that "Stable Seat" on Etsy is a good alternative. Although they are 3D printed, which is still not great, no one has had anything bad to say about them.

That being said, I have used 3D printed parts in the past in my Jeep and internal temps can sometimes creep into the yield temp of the plastic and they will deform into a goopy state and retail that when cooled. Also ABS and PLA do not hold up well to friction very well, and PLA hates water. Neither are great for this app, but if they are Nylon then it may hold up well to the wear, but again it doesn't like water.

There have been a few who make these bushing themselves out of Delrin (I think this is the way to go in the case of homebrew), but you would need access to a lathe or machine shop to do that. (driving up cost)

One guy found a flanged bushing/washer thing at Ace hardware that worked after minor tweaking, link provided below.

https://wranglertjforum.com/threads/seat-noise.9145/
My final opinion is go with Stable Seat as it is a proven brand and there haven't been any bad reviews that I could find. The amazon link above only has one review and its poor.

https://wranglertjforum.com/threads/product-review-stable-seat.11070/
The Stable Seat guy is all over the TJ pages on FB. Several have reported issues with breakage and premature failure. Like you, I suspected that manufacturing method would be less that optimal for this application but for a long time no one said much negative and then the reports of failure started showing up.
 
Like you, I suspected that manufacturing method would be less that optimal for this application but for a long time no one said much negative and then the reports of failure started showing up.
I thought that was going to happen. A lot of the posts were from 2 ish years ago. About the time that ABS would give way, even with minimal use. 3D printing is great for prototyping, but it should rarely be used as an end user material.
 
I thought that was going to happen. A lot of the posts were from 2 ish years ago. About the time that ABS would give way, even with minimal use. 3D printing is great for prototyping, but it should rarely be used as an end user material.
I have a 3D printed part that has enough plastic in it to make a couple of hundred seat bushings and it never once occurred to me that it would make an actual viable part. For awhile reading everyone raving about how good the bushing kits were, I just figured I wasn't keeping up with 3D printing in plastic and needed to pay more attention. Then the failures started.