Front leaf spring bush ware

I expect that at nearly 4 tons in weight you are probably overloaded and carrying more than the manufacturer's recommended amount so premature wear will probably be one of the repercussions along with steering, wheel bearings, brakes, stressing suspension points, etc etc. But even if you have had a gvm upgrade done to make it legal if that's possible bushes will be the first thing to go unless they have also been rated to handle the extra weight. If you have a steel bull bar and winch maybe changing to an alloy bar will help a little.

I've carried similar weight on my 2007 VDJ79 V8 ute with parabolic springs (rear, coils on the front) and greaseable bolts which I greased daily on rough roads.

On the Anne Beadell we broke the front bolt, but fortunately I had a bolt that got us home (Perth). The offending bolt was 14ml, but the grease hole across the centre reduced its' strength quite considerably. And all the bushes needed replacing after 15,000ks. The supplier promptly gave me 2 x 19ml bolts, and also told me that if I wanted the best bushes fit genuine Toyota, which I've done so (they need to be pressed into the spring), and I fitted the original bolts which don't need grease. No problems since.

Mark,
I have a 95 troopy which has been extensively modified for remote area travelling. When doing the upgrade I spent quite a while choosing the bushes and shackles. I found a lot of the cross bolts were made from poor quality material and some of the poly bushes suspect. I ended up with a set from terrain tamer and 100K later they area still going fine.

I suspect that the weight is a major issue. Have you had really good wheel alignment done by folk used to 4wds? The twist side to side is not normal for a vehicle that is correct. Mine does not. It sounds to me like something is flexing or the camber/caster is wrong.

With that weight how are your brakes? Troopys never were very good even when new.

Cheers

Don't worry mate, we are a long way from home in Uzbekistan at the moment.

The brakes are not that crash hot, particularly since we converted it to auto so I can drive as a paraplegic.
We take our time and keep our distance. Seems to be doing the trick as we are now at 300m and a week prior crossed a 4700m pass.

Sounds like a made the wrong choice regarding the bushes. May have to get some toyota ones sent over for the next change as we are headed for South Africa and I'm sure there's plenty of rough roads between here and there. Oh well you learn these things on the road the hard way sometimes.

The caster we had corrected by fitting the 2 degree camber plates. I just replaced all the rod ends and had an alignment performed on the most hi tech machine I've seen. All as per the manufacturers recommendations. The springs don't flex much at all now when steering, it was noticeable though when the bushes were flogged out.

We do have the steel bullbar, winch brush bars and turbo conversion so there is a lot more weight up front than standard. When we shipped it came in at 3300kg. It had most of our stuff but we have more in. When factoring 3 fuel tanks, 70l water and two people we figured fully loaded we would be close to 4 tonnes. It's our home for the year so we have got a fair bit of junk!

Thanks anyway guys for the recommendations. More stuff to try and track down while on the road!

Check our blog if interested as we drive from London to Cape Town via Central Asia.

Http://Lostabound.com

Just goes to confirm that 'aftermarket' is n't neccessarily better. I had similiar problem ....replaced the front swaybar bushes after 190,000k's with non genuine and flogged them out in about 20k now gone back to genuine Toyota after 40k all good.

I stopped using "plastic" bushes years ago as they rode harder, wore out quicker, were more expensive and usually squeaked.
Go the rubber even aftermarket as long as it is rubber.
This also goes for coil sprung control arm bushes, the plastic ones crack from flexing off road.