Ok, so here's what happened. I pulled the diff bracket and pushed the old bushings out. That was a pain but it's done now. I have the Pettit hard bushings that I am putting in. Here's where I screwed up. I didn't look at the lips on the bushings to see that they are different thicknesses until after I already pressed them in. After trying several different ways to get them back out, I finally had to drill through 1 side of each set of bushings to get a screwdriver in there to push the other side out. You can see how that left the bushings in the picture. I also chipped part of the lip off on one of the bushing halves but it should affect anything.

My question is this: Does anyone think that the holes I drilled will compromise the integrity of the bushings to the point where I shouldn't use them? I would appreciate any thoughts and opinions on this.

Currently I'm leaning toward using them as they are and I just want to get a second opinion from you guys.

Thanks guys,
Jeremy

 

hmm yikes, i have no idea, i know the lip being broken off isn't good. not sure about your holes though

 

Why do you think that's a problem? It's got plenty of lip around 75% of the bushing.

 

fill the hole with some polyurethane if you are worried about it.

 

That's what I was thinking.

 

OK,

So I got the diff bushings installed as well as the trailing links from Pettit. The car feels much more composed now. I do notice more cabin noice but it doesn't bother me.

The thing that does bother me is that when I hit the brakes, I hear creaking and popping. Did I set it up wrong?

I'm going to get an alignment tomorrow. Is that noise normal or is something out of whack?