back from the dead! and a little update! Not doing so good!
Installed OME medium 2" leaf springs, and pressed in crown bushings for the front and rear eyes of the spring, and used a crown oem style replacement shackle.
Well...the leaf spring bushings look good, and look like natural rubber..you know a little dry looking w/ that white powder on them when they are new. those bushings are doing great so far (about 2 weeks or so since install).
However the SHACKLES are CRAP, the upper bushing of the shackle (that comes already pressed in) has the rubber sliding out of the outer metal sleeve of the bushing. So basically the bond between the rubber, and outside metal sleeve of the bushing is garbage, and not working. So if you look at my rear shackles the rubber is smooshed all the way to one side and sticking out of the shackle. The shackle is all the way to the other side of the 'box' of the unibody and the rubber is sticking out as much as it can on the other side. Also b/c of this the metal of the shackle is now grinding against the uni-body 'box'.
I also noted that this 'rubber' unlike the crown leaf spring bushings, is that very dark black glossy/shiny/oily feeling 'rubber' and reminds me more of a polyurethane-ish type material than natural rubber. I had my doubts right off the bat and they've been confirmed.
I have found another company that makes an oem style rear shackle with bushing installed. Omix-ada (P/N 18280.19) However there only seems to be one picture of this shackle no matter where you look on the internet and it appears to be a duplicate of the materials used in the crown product.
Also should i call crown, or quadratec (who i ordered from), to get a refund? Crown says their parts have a 1 year/12k mile warranty. I have a good feeling if i get another set of shackles from crown the same thing will happen.
Does anyone have, or can measure the O.D and length of the OEM bushing in the shackle? I was thinking of pushing out the garbage bushings, and finding a good rubber bushing and pressing that in. Like i said i have a feeling both a new set of crowns, or the omix-ada's will leave me in the same position...screwed
Thanks!
PS: I do not want poly, on my suspensions i much prefer the way rubber works compared to poly.