Project Jeep CJ-7 Daystar Swaybar Bushings Tip. When swapping out your stock CJ swaybar bushings with the Daystar Swaybar Bushings, here’s a Tip – Use the CJ bracket! Here’s why…
First off, upgrading your sway bar bushings from the old stock rubber bushings to newer polyurethane bushings is a good idea. Generally, the old rubber is worn out and soft, offering little effective anti-sway on the road. But if you own a CJ and you are about to or have already replaced the old bushings with the Daystar replacement, then you might want to read this tip.
When the project CJ-7 was built, the factory swaybar bushings were replaced before the Jeep ever hit the trails. After a couple of years of offroading in my CJ-7 I was doing one of my post wheeling once over inspections to look for any issues that might have popped up during the last trip. Looking at the Daystar swaybar bushing, I saw to my surprise, that the bushing brackets had warped and bent. This past trip prior finding this, I had driven a little with the swaybar connected. Nothing radical, just some cruising on the rough roads near a lot of cabins, roads that average cars can navigate easily.
I figured I could take a hammer to them and flatten them out again, but chances are they would just bend again. I knew I had the original brackets still hanging in the garage (I never throw away anything, thus the clutter). Closer inspection of the factory CJ-7 brackets, I realized that the CJ’s brackets were thicker material. Putting a micrometer to each bracket, I got .11 inch on the Daystar bracket and .16 inch on the stock CJ-7 bracket. Additionally, the Daystar bracket had an oblong hole on both sides, where as the CJ had a smaller oblong hole on just one site and a single circle hole on the other. Obviously the Daystar is oblong to accommodate a variety of dimensions but the holes had apparently made the bracket just that much more weaker.
Daystar bracket – .118 inch
CJ bracket – .161 inch
So, to get to the point and the tip I used the CJ-7 swaybar bracket along with the Daystar polyurethane bushing. I’m much more confident that the CJ brackets can withstand a little pounding as where the daystar brackets just couldn’t take it. It’s a good thing I kept the old parts.
The budget Rebuild by Ralph HasselThe complete build is documentedhere on www.Offroaders.comThis 1978 Jeep CJ-7 never started life as a complete Jeep; rather it was built completely from parts. The goal was to build a […]
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Project Jeep CJ-7 Daystar Swaybar Bushings Tip. When swapping out your stock CJ swaybar bushings with the Daystar Swaybar Bushings, here’s a Tip – Use the CJ bracket! Here’s why…First off, upgrading your sway bar bushings […]
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