Shake, Rattle,Roll
New bushings improve steering response and more
3 Minute Read
Beating the Bush means “to avoid looking for answers.” Well, this week I actually found answers after months of Beating the Bush.
Vanagons make suspension sounds all the time. I wasn’t surprised when my ‘86 started to creak and groan. It’s just how it is. And, the steering was not as responsive as it used to be.
I decided to take a look under the front end of the van, where I heard the sounds. That’s when I discovered a source of the noise and terrible steering response.
The relentless squeak and creak came from a variety of places in the front end. The old rubber bump stops at the coil to the trailing arm bushings all looked like culprits. They were dry as a bone, grayish in color.
The steering rack and anti-sway bar were possible sources as well, guaranteed a friend with several Vanagons.
But it’s biggest problem, he insisted, was the four worn rubber bushings, which allowed too much steering input play. With the help of this good friend I looked at the steering rack as he turned the wheel, and there was a 1/4-inch (I’m guessing) gap with every turn. That can’t be good for steering response.
Then I asked him to put his weight on the front bumper and that when I heard the anti-sway bar squeak. The first thing I did was re-lube the urethane bushings on the T3 anti-sway bar with silicone grease. He had suggested it.
After a brief discussion about what to do further…I sprayed a generous amount of silicone on the rubber suspension/front end bushings. I couldn’t reach them all that well, but I gave it an effort anyways. After waiting an hour for the silicone to penetrate the rubber I test drove it, and most of the noise went away. This is not a permanent solution. A permanent solution would be to replace all the bushings with new ones. But it’s been a couple of months and the sounds haven’t returned.
If your Vanagon squeaks and you think it is coming from the front of the vehicle you can safely spray a pure Silicon generously on all of the rubber bushings. I’d recommend Home Depo for Silicone and Graphite Sprays. Do NOT spray silicone on Urethane bushings. There is a special grease formula for urethane that must be used.
Don’t use any old lube on urethane.
Use a silicone-based synthetic water-proof grease. It needs to be applied wherever metal touches the urethane, and liberally.
It’s also a good time to replace the steering rack bushings. I bought mine from T3. There’s several videos on YouTube to show you how to replace the four bushings on the rack. It takes about two hours of work. If you have a safe method of lifting the front end, use it. You’ll need the room underneath the vehicle to access the four bolts holding the rack in place. You may have to remove the nuts and bolts of the steering column, where it attaches near the anti-sway bar. That should give you some wiggle room when lowering the steering rack. Power steering racks like mine are a bit more delicate than non-power racks. Be careful not to bend the steel tubes entering the rack!
After I did all of the above, the noise was definitely gone, and after replacing my steering rack bushings with urethane the response in the steering rack improved 120 percent.
Until I get around to replacing all of the old rubber bushings with urethane, I’ll just repeat the process and break out the silicone. It’s a cheap way of resolving an issue. Good luck, and get a friend to help.
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Larry Saavedra
Subject Matter Experts. Specializing in content for automotive and outdoor projects.