robgeo1 wrote:Do you feel the front bushings are worth the cost/time?
Yup! With just the front bushings alone the truck corners a lot better, particularly at highway speed. Best test was a downhill entrance ramp onto a highway at 80mph with a BMW cutting me off. Front left tire had a lot of turning and brake force on it and the truck stayed very level. And steering is a little more on-center too.
But...I think it could be better. Pictures later when I get time, but if you look at how yours are now they're split open at the back and squishing up and down into where the bracket bends to meet the frame. A more squared bracket (or maybe some rubber bits in the stock bracket) would keep the bushing tight around the bar all the way around.
I ordered a different part that should come with a bracket, and the same for the rear. (It's a 25mm bar for those who are curious, I also measured the bushing and bracket dimensions and ordered something that looks right.) There's a lot of complaints about this on Amazon and elsewhere, with Energy Suspension or Prothane bushings showing a bracket plus bushing in pictures, but not shipping a bracket.
I went to the Energy Suspension website and found a part number that seems to correlate to generic bushings plus brackets that measure up to what I saw. Will see what I get in a few days and hopefully get them installed by Friday.
Searching for "brackets" I did find some machined aluminum Hotchkiss units with bushings...for $100. Not going that far on this experiment
Oh...rear sway bar end links are the right part, but they are going to be a PITA to get to. May save that one for later. My truck started life on the east coast so a lot of things are rusted together. What should have taken less than an hour (front end links, sway bar bushings, and tire rotation) took about three hours and my big breaker bar. If I'd had a sawzall or something I'd have just cut the stupid end links off. Anyway...not looking forward to the rear version of what I went through on the front.