Hey All....been a while since I’ve posted. Regarding new Energy Suspension rear control arm bushings.....where, specifically, does the grease go?

I’ve read lots of different opinions. Even the directions that come from Energy are ambiguous:

“Apply grease to all metal parts that contact the polyurethane bushings.”

All metal parts would mean you apply grease to the ID of the control arms after pressing out the old steel bushings. It also means grease goes inside the arm mounts on the frame. I believe the grease should only be allied to the sleeve but may be wrong.

http://storage.googleapis.com/aam-fi...sion/17536.pdf

What’s right?!

Thanks!

The ID and OD of the bushing.

I did the whiteline bushings for my front LCAs, which I would recommend over the energy suspension bushings because you don't need to reuse the OEM metal bushings shells, sleeves, and washers. Not sure if the same reusing applies to the rears, but something to look into. If you live anywhere where rust is a concern, the bushing shells are probably rusting. They're made of or coated with an inferior material that rusts before the control arm. This is what my bushing shells looked like, all broken up and deterioration. In the last two pics, you can see the LCA was pretty much unaffected other than a bit of pitting.


The main thing to grease is the sleeves inside the bushings. On a poly bushing, the control arm and bushing rotate around these sleeves, which are held rigidly to the frame with the alignment hardware.


Its hard to see (can click to go to imgur for bigger pic), but the inside of the whiteline bushings have crosshatching to hold the grease inside the bushing for lubrication. Not sure if the rear link energy suspension bushings have these, but a nice thing to see on the whitelines


I also did grease the bushing shells on install to hopefully make them slide into the LCA tubes easier. Whiteline actually said not to do this, but I saw it afterwards lol. I don't really see an issue with doing this though, since the fit is so tight, I have no worries about it rotating around the shells by accident. If the rear energy suspension bushings don't have the shells on them, then I would probably grease between the shells and the bushing to prevent squeakage.


Also greased the alignment cams so they would not seize into the bushings sleeves like my old hardware did. Anti-seize on the threads I used more than is showed, this was just for visual representation. If the rears are anything like the fronts, then I would suggest greasing the bolts with a waterproof grease to dissuade water from making a home in there