One of the main philosophies when we were preparing the truck, was to replace or overhaul anything that could break out in the bush. Having a part fail in the middle of nowhere could lead to a lot of headaches in a best case scenario. If it happened in the middle of the Sahara the consequences could be a lot worse. With this in mind we had a close look at the suspension bushes. All of them were made of rubber and were at least 15 years old. Rubber tends to deteriorate with age and it is not always easy to see in what condition these bushes were in. A lot of other overlanders replace their standard rubber bushes with polyurethane ones. Although it firms up the ride (theoretically) it will keep your suspension parts moving in the correct plane for longer. Also the price for these were not very high, it is the installation cost that is significant. So we decided that prevention is better than cure and ordered a set with the idea of fitting them ourselves. Apparently all you need is a big press to push out the old ones and install the new.
We had already purchased a cheap 12 ton pipe bender that we tried to modify into a press. Only afterwards did we find out that real presses are 30 ton units, and with good reason. It took us almost 2 weeks of on and off work and we destroyed the 12 ton hydraulic jack to get the old bushes out. Installing the new ones were a piece of cake. I can see now that with the correct tools this job can be done in a day, but this is how you learn. Can’t say that we can really feel the difference between the old and the new, probably because the car is already loaded so heavily. But am positive that once we hit the really nast corrugations these will hold up better than the rubber.
We had to weld and make holes in our pipe bender