I have a 1995 F150 supercab and know that the radius arm bushing is bad. I wanted to know if anyone knows of an easy and quick way to change this on the drivers side?

 

Do them both at the same time and get urethane bushings to replace them.

You have 2 ways:

1) remove the radius arm brackets. If you hvae bolts there, great. Unbolt and go to town. If you have rivits, you will need to drill, grind, cut those things out of there. It will take about 1 hour per rivit. Then replace with grade 8 bolts.

2). Unbolt the radius arm nuts, and pull the front axle forward with a cumalong or something similar.

Have fun. I cut the rivits out on my 94 Ranger, and did it that way. Then replaced the bushings with urethane so I did not ever have to mess with them again.

 

Thanks for the advice I went and bought urethane bushings for both sides.

 

I have bad driver side radius arm bushing. So, can I just remove the rear bracket ( I will need to grind off a rivet) put in new bushing set, and then rebolt (with grade 8 bolt)? ALSO, is it possible the rear bracket holding the radius arm could be damaged (will I need to replace that)?

 

The biggest issue when trying to replace the radius arm bushings, in my experience, is trying to keep the shock mount from snapping off of the radius arm itself. If your 95 has the shock bolted directly to the arm, which I believe it does, then there is a very good chance that the mount will snap off at least one of the arms. There are repair kits out there that are suppose to allow you to bolt the shock back up to the arm if the mount snaps, but the few I've seen were horribly designed and didnt look very safe. I'd leave some wiggle room with the $$$ in case one breaks and then just get a new arm.

Just something to llook out for....

 

Yes, you are correct the D35 did use the stud on the radius arm to mount the shock. It was very common for them to break off even when not twisting them around like this. I would not waste the time trying to pull the axle forward for the reason listed above, but also when pulling it forward the coils will want to bind up and will make it a pita to try and pop it all back into place. You are time and money ahead to drill out the rivets. When you do it make sure you have MANY drill bits available. These rivets are hard and will eat many drill bits. A couple of the bolts are alot of fun to get to. On my 86 one was located behind the fuel filter housing which I had to unbolt from the frame and pull out some to get a wrench on the bolt.


As for the other person asking if they needed to replace the radius arm bracket. It could be broken or tweaked, but that usually takes hitting something hard with the front axle or dropping onto something. Typically they don't get damaged too often. Unless you see it as being twisted up or cracked I wouldn't replace it. But when you do it you are correct, drill out the rivets, drop the bracket out (make sure the truck is on jack stands) and put in your new bushing set, and then reassemble and put grade 8 bolts in place of the old rivets.