Rear End Sway

[ccampbell01]

Was headed back from a work trip last week and while I was on the freeway doing about 70 I very gently swerved for a pothole and noticed my rear end started to sway back and forth. Nothing too crazy but definitely not comforting. I was loaded down with a bit of gear.. maybe 300 lbs all together but I've had that load capacity with camping gear before and never felt this. Any thoughts?

Currently running Bilstein 5100's and OME 890's in the rear. Is it time to swap the billys? Maybe this is just an excuse to redo the rear with some LC 8 WRAPS!?! WHO KNOWS!

 

[frank_socal]

had similar issue, the rear felt like it swayed left to right a bit and it was the control arm bushings. I replaced them and problem went away.

 

[Devbot]

^^^ same here, definitely check your trailing arms and panhard bar. Whiteline makes a kit for all of them, very cheap and easy fix. The captive bushings in the lower arms were a bit of a pain but Timmy has a video on pressing them out (personally I just used a hacksaw and cut/hammered them out). Uppers and panhard were dead easy as they were plain old rubber, no captive steel sleeve frozen to the socket. IMO if I could go back in time and do the job over again I'd also take the time to tap all these arms and install some grease fittings for the bushings too, just an idea :thumb3:

 

[ccampbell01]

had similar issue, the rear felt like it swayed left to right a bit and it was the control arm bushings. I replaced them and problem went away.

yupp that sounds about right. thanks for the input!

 

[ccampbell01]

^^^ same here, definitely check your trailing arms and panhard bar. Whiteline makes a kit for all of them, very cheap and easy fix. The captive bushings in the lower arms were a bit of a pain but Timmy has a video on pressing them out (personally I just used a hacksaw and cut/hammered them out). Uppers and panhard were dead easy as they were plain old rubber, no captive steel sleeve frozen to the socket. IMO if I could go back in time and do the job over again I'd also take the time to tap all these arms and install some grease fittings for the bushings too, just an idea :thumb3:

that's a solid idea! ill have to check out timmys video thanks for reference!

 

[tx_shooter]

^^^ same here, definitely check your trailing arms and panhard bar. Whiteline makes a kit for all of them, very cheap and easy fix. The captive bushings in the lower arms were a bit of a pain but Timmy has a video on pressing them out (personally I just used a hacksaw and cut/hammered them out). Uppers and panhard were dead easy as they were plain old rubber, no captive steel sleeve frozen to the socket. IMO if I could go back in time and do the job over again I'd also take the time to tap all these arms and install some grease fittings for the bushings too, just an idea :thumb3:

+1 for tapping / setting up grease fittings. I wish I had taken the extra time last year to do that last year. Also +1 for Whiteline.

 

[JohnMc]

Tagging in with a concur on the rear bushings. Coming back from our summer road trip (lots of hard wheeling) I was getting a gentle swaying from the rear going at freeway speeds. I first double checked that I wasn't doing it (I used to get into 'arguments' with the GY Wranglers on an old Bronco II, they were squirmy, I'd subconsciously 'correct' them, and get into a gentle feedback loop).

At a gas station I checked for loose bushings, didn't see much of anything. Tried airing the tires up more (which did help a small amount). But still, hit a road heave, or wiggle the steering wheel, back into a slow swaying motion (which luckily didn't progress). I found one way to break out of it without slowing was to just steer in a slow curve from one side of the lane and back. That was enough to reset it until the next bump kicked it off again.

In my case, it ended up being a panhard rod bushing. When I checked for loose bushings on the road, I guess it was sitting under tension because it didn't seem to budge. But at home, yanking the back of the truck sideways back and forth as hard as I could, and yep, it had maybe 1/4" of 'wiggle'. New poly bushings, problem solved.