I'm still trying to fight water filter off .... no results yet... horrible place for it and very poor design from factory with lego... bracket.

#9 here Shane.... How did your bushings look when you switched? I'm guessing you still had the Nylon ones on your rig.

They were the same as yours. Apparently they Don make nylon like they used to

Goo news-bad news
 

Good news - I also FOUND the other 3 grease zerks on my pin box !!!
Bad news - my darn grease gun will not reach the last 2 :evil:

Steve, are you running 7k or 8k axles?

Bob

Have the 7k axles.

Steve

Thanks Steve. Hope you are planning on taking your rig out soon. I'm real curious on the towing difference from your upgrades. Please let us know!

Bob

If that O-ring didn't get greased with a potable grease when installed, you are in for some additional fun. I tore mine right off the mount trying to unscrew the canister and once it was off I just threw it away and replaced it. I carry a tube of the grease with me now.

Good advice Brad. Lowe's sells a small container of "plumbers grease" in the Plumbing Repair section. A small purchase to prevent big frustrations! The grease also improves the water seal.

Bob

Ya, I carry some of this with me - will probably last me forever and then some.

Robot Check

here are some pictures of my old nylon bushings after 2200miles
this was a kind of good one I kept.

[ATTACH][ATTACH]Attachment 1955[/ATTACH][/ATTACH]

Just curious if anyone is taking up Redwood on the offer announced a while ago:

1. Take it to the Dealer and if bushings are bad, they pick up the labor and material. If the bushings are not bad, you pay the Dealer for checking.
2. Do it yourself and Lippert will send bushings at a reduced cost as agreed upon with Redwood.

Not worth the phone call and time in my opinion since I was doing all the other small mods anyhow.
They are also getting quick on payment. I emailed my invoice to them for the last repairs on the 7th and check arrived today.

Steve

Brad,
I tried too, also not worth the effort. Tried to get Christian involved, a fail. When I had Ron do the brakes, I replaced the bushings with the never lube.....turns out 3 of the 4 brakes were soaked with grease. Looking forward to better stopping.

Ken

all the other ones I pulled out where broken or ripped in half.. didn't take to long to do the wet bolt kit, for us being a full time residence taking it to the dealer is almost impossible and there is not a travel guy around here.

17.5 will be next..

Ok I was just curious. I've got the wet bolt kit in the garage waiting, so I wasn't going to bother with the Dealer either.

Nylon bushings on 16500 lbs trailer is a "no brainer"..............whom ever the someone is at Lippert or Redwood that thought that would be an okay design, has no brains. That was forced by marketing / sales to save a few $.

When I changed out the bushings on my coach last summer, the nylon bushings were totally shredded. That is not a design based on sound engineering principles. I would hazard a guess that most of the nylon bushings are totally destroyed after 1000 miles which means they were bad when delivered to the dealer in many cases.

JMHO

Nylon spring bushings on RV trailers is nothing new. Our 1991 Prowler TT had nylon busings, but of course it was about 12000 Lbs lighter, but they still wore thru.

Trailer Life did an article on replacing nylon bushings several months ago, and the way they make it sound it is the rule rather than the exception, but then Lippert has their hand in all of them.

Funny part is, Lippert didn't install the springs, Redwood did. These frames came to the plant on temporary single axles.

I chatted with Andy on the bushing thing a while back (not sure why I was the one he called) and he said in his warranty survey with Dealers - less than 1% of warranties were for bushings, which unfortunately supports those that advocate taking "everything" to the Dealer for Warranty, because they can't fix the production line if they don't know it's broke in the field. I for one don't advocate that, as I'm not here to fix the industry.

I think that where the industry fell down was by HOW they tracked the info.. Andy also called me and we had a rather long conversation about it..

They were tracking the info based off warranty payouts, which would be a rather low number.. NOT warranty claims or denials, which would raise that 1% much greater..
That was the primary reason that he decided to change the way they do things as far as bushings... Not long after is when they offered the deal on bronze bushings to existing owners.. I also believe that he stated that once all the present orders were fulfilled with Lippert, they would be changing to all bronze bushings on all future orders....