Larry,
The way it's designed is like this.-
The A-arm bushings are "supposed" to stay locked into the housing they're inserted into. The bushings are designed to rotate on the sleeve. The sleeve is held from moving because it's clamped by the bolt. (or it should be)
Too many times I've take these things apart usually the first time since new, and find that the bolt has egg shaped my A arm holes, and the bolt is worn because the sleeve was rotating on the bolt instead of the bushing. This is all caused by the bolt not being tight enough. Just because they have lock washers doesn't mean that they don't need to be VERY tight.
The bushing turning in the hub is a common problem. The best fix I've found is to get some 5 minute epoxy, put it on the outside of the bushings before you insert them then slide them in and put a clamp on them so they stay put for 10 minutes or so. Granted you'll never be able to get those bushing out again, but since you're already faced with a worn out hub assembly, it's not that big of a deal. I've done this on a couple rangers and it works WELL. You don't need to drill the sleeve for grease. all you need to do is drill the aluminum hub assembly in the center between the two bushings (2 zerks per wheel). and put in a 45 or 90 degree grease fitting. granted you'll have to remove the rear wheels to grease them ,but doing that once every hundred hours or so isn't too big of a deal. Drilling just the housing allows the grease between the sleeve and the bushing. right where it needs to be. you dont need grease inside the sleeve...
If I had it to do all over again when I rebuilt the suspensions on these 3 800s, I'd still have installed grease zerks, but instead of going with the garbage polaris golf cart bushing/sleeve setup, I would have bought the kits that All Balls Racing sells. They use an actual bearing in place of the bushings. The cost isn't much different, and I imagine the bearing would last forever especially if grease zerks were installed.
Good luck!
The way it's designed is like this.-
The A-arm bushings are "supposed" to stay locked into the housing they're inserted into. The bushings are designed to rotate on the sleeve. The sleeve is held from moving because it's clamped by the bolt. (or it should be)
Too many times I've take these things apart usually the first time since new, and find that the bolt has egg shaped my A arm holes, and the bolt is worn because the sleeve was rotating on the bolt instead of the bushing. This is all caused by the bolt not being tight enough. Just because they have lock washers doesn't mean that they don't need to be VERY tight.
The bushing turning in the hub is a common problem. The best fix I've found is to get some 5 minute epoxy, put it on the outside of the bushings before you insert them then slide them in and put a clamp on them so they stay put for 10 minutes or so. Granted you'll never be able to get those bushing out again, but since you're already faced with a worn out hub assembly, it's not that big of a deal. I've done this on a couple rangers and it works WELL. You don't need to drill the sleeve for grease. all you need to do is drill the aluminum hub assembly in the center between the two bushings (2 zerks per wheel). and put in a 45 or 90 degree grease fitting. granted you'll have to remove the rear wheels to grease them ,but doing that once every hundred hours or so isn't too big of a deal. Drilling just the housing allows the grease between the sleeve and the bushing. right where it needs to be. you dont need grease inside the sleeve...
If I had it to do all over again when I rebuilt the suspensions on these 3 800s, I'd still have installed grease zerks, but instead of going with the garbage polaris golf cart bushing/sleeve setup, I would have bought the kits that All Balls Racing sells. They use an actual bearing in place of the bushings. The cost isn't much different, and I imagine the bearing would last forever especially if grease zerks were installed.
Good luck!
