Replacing leaf spring suspension bushings

[Bigbird65]

Probably some of you new to travel trailers are not aware of the need to replace the 14 suspension bushings on the dual axle trailers. I replaced these at 14,724 miles and should have replaced them by 10,000 miles at the latest. The original bushings were nylon and they wear out pretty quickly and cause metal to metal wear. I replaced them on our Winnebago 2101DS with Never Fail bushings (P/N LC279685) from etrailer.com They are also available on Amazon. etrailer has a pretty good installation video. Once you get setup with jack stands and jacks to support the brake assemblies the job is not too hard for the average mechanically inclined do-it-yourself-er. You can follow on this thread, how I did it starting on post #3069. There are a couple of pages of comments.

[gery_L]

Not an argument, but stating some facts.
I have changed out with the Lippert never fail on 4 trailers now.
Laugh with disbelief all you want. Its just a name......
Anything is better than the nylon bushings installed as new....... 3 sets were of nylon. One set was greeseable bronze. All were as bad or worse as shown in first post. In fact the bronze were not just warn, but missing large chunks of bushing or almost completely missing.

My view.

Since greaseable only pivot, and do not rotate fully. The grease just dissipates away from the top pivot point. Even applying grease without taking weight off of the suspension is basically useless, as there were no grease channels within the Bronze to disperse along pivot point.

Only my .02 after 4 change outs.

Just another item to have scheduled maintenance around.

Gery

[Bigbird65]

Read the claim at the bottom of the back of the Neverfail package. By the way, I wasn't trying to start a war over bushings.

[Ralph_Cramden]

SoundGuy wrote:

Ralph Cramden wrote:
Lippert Never Fail........LOL.....................OK

Yeah, but since your response is so predictable we can ignore it. :W I'm going with Never Fail bushings. :B

Ignore what you want, its your money. I have seen those Lippert never fail bushings last about 5 years if you put any kind of miles on. Better buy two sets, they'll probably be more expensive a few years down the road.

[SoundGuy]

Ralph Cramden wrote:
Lippert Never Fail........LOL.....................OK

Yeah, but since your response is so predictable we can ignore it. :W I'm going with Never Fail bushings. :B

[Ralph_Cramden]

Lippert Never Fail........LOL.....................OK

[ScottG]

Not sure about the Never Fails but the wet bolt kit has shackles that are 2.5 times as thick.
Not only did they last without any further wear but the thick shackles wont allow the bolts to come loose in them like the thin ones do.

[Ron3rd]

Dexter wet bolt kit here too (on my previous trailer). The plastic bushings were gone after about 4 years.

[3oaks]

SoundGuy wrote:
I installed a Dexter Wet Bolt Kit on our previous K-Z Spree when the stock nylon bushings had clearly disintegrated but this time around I've instead ordered a set of Lippert Never Fail bushings for our current Coachmen. Good mod. 🙂

Next Spring, I plan on replacing the original nylon bushings. I'm going back and forth between Dexter's wet bolts and Lippert's Never Fail bushings. :@

[corvettekent]

I installed the Dexter Wet Bolt Kit a few years ago after I had one tire wear out.

[SoundGuy]

I installed a Dexter Wet Bolt Kit on our previous K-Z Spree when the stock nylon bushings had clearly disintegrated but this time around I've instead ordered a set of Lippert Never Fail bushings for our current Coachmen. Good mod. 🙂