energy suspension bushing problem

I purchased a master kit from energy suspension for my 91 cherokee and everything fit great until I decided to replace the upper control arm bushings on the axle. The bushings fit fine but the spacers they gave me are completely wrong. I cant get them to fit over the bushing shell on the diff and they would be to thick if I did get them to fit. Anybody else run into this issue and if so how did you deal with the problem?

I wouldn't change the bushings from rubber to poly. I have poly in my Skyjacker lower arms and they are crap. Brand new set of bushings wore out in two days of wheeling and they are so hard they do not absorb any shock when hitting a bump.

there is a sleeve that the bushing sits in, you will need to remove that.

pics would help.

and x3 about staying away from poly.

I am using poly with the stock arms so the sleeve's have to stay in the diff/control arms otherwise the bushing would have nearly a 1/4 inch of slop and the edge of the sheet metal control arms would cut through the bushing. I have never had issues with poly bushings in all the vehicles I have owned and that includes many muscle cars and chevy trucks, even road race cars, they all handled way better with poly than rubber. Yes they may limit flex and transmit more vibes but if I was worried about that I would build a coilover long arm or 3 link. They work great if you use enough lube, the little bit they give you with the kit is NOT enough to prevent dry bushings and every couple years I remove them and relube and have never had issues.

Poly works great in the other vehicles you described,but it will tear the mounts off your XJ(besides destroying themselves)!

It will rip them off even with the stock flimsy control arms? The arms seem to flex a ton and I am only at 3-3.5" lift and never disconnect the sway bars. I have searched and have not found anyone thats ripped the mounts off with the stock arms. With the aftermarket solid one's I can see that happening. Guess I'll have to come up with the cash to do a 4 link long arm for my DD.

stock arms ARE junk for offroad PERIOD!

The 4 link geometry isn't perfect on an XJ. If you put solid bushings in and braced everything so no part would flex, the suspension would only be able to flex maybe an inch. It could move up and down, but move one side up and the whole thing would lock solid. The stock rubber bushings give the slack the system needs to move. The "junk" factory arms are supposed to twist. That's why they are a modified "C" channel cross section, and not fully boxed. This allows the suspension to move without greatly twisting the bushings side to side, or overloading the control arm mounts.

Replace the arms with heavy tubular arms with poly or flex bushings at all 8 points, and you have removed all the give in the factory system. Now, the flex is transferred to the frame side lower control arm mounts, and the passenger side axle end upper control arm mount on a non-disco axle. These points will eventually fail.

I don't like poly bushings. They work pretty well on street cars. They do tighten up the suspension. For an off-road vehicle, you need the flex.

While I agree that anything wheeled in the rocks needs stronger lower control arms to prevent impact damage, I wouldn't flat out say the factory arms are junk. They're actually pretty tough as long as you don't bash them with rocks.

Factory arms, no modification allowed per class rules. Bent the whole front end, including moving the spring towers, bending the bump towers, contacting the engine with the upper control arm axle mounts, pushed the antisway bar links through the inner fenders. Never damaged the control arms.

You can also see what looks like a funky shadow on the beam axle truss, which makes it look bent. It's not a funky shadow, the truss took a hit. Bent the truss, didn't damage the control arms.