Replacing Sway Bar bushings

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When replacing facotory sway bar bushings with; for example Fed MOOG blue thermoplastic bushings, spread a little silicone disk brake grease on the bar first. Do not use petroleum based grease. This advice is per MOOG tech today.

52pu
 
Applies to all types of elastomers. Regular petroleum based grease contains oil and a thickening agent. Many hoses and rubber parts under the hood are made of EPDM rubber or sometimes even SBR rubber. Neither of these is oil resistant and will swell and even crack if allowed to absorb oil. Cooling system hoses, for example, are typically made from EPDM. Typical oil resistant parts mad of rubber are made of nitrile rubber; these include things like hydraulic hoses. Very high performance/high cost silicone based elastomers are also oil resistant.

Silicone grease is a polymeric material (perhaps with a bit of silicone oil added)that will not absorb into rubber. It will generally stay on the surface and therefore it can lubricate but not penetrate the rubber part. As such, it is ideal for lubricating the surface of any rubber part. It wl not cause swelling or cracking.
 
When I've installed polyurethane bushings before, the company was nice to include grease. If they aren't greased , they will squeak.

Sticky stuff
 
When I put a thicker rear sway bar on my FXT, the instructions stated to not put anything on the bushings since they already had some kind of lubricant coating on them (kind of waxy stuff). But, my bar did make clunking noises on turns for a few days after installation...I checked all the hardware and everything was tight. The noises went away and I love the bar now, but I wondered at the time if some white lithium grease would have been a good idea.
 
there is a bushing lube from mopar too, expensive but really sticky and works great on bushings
 
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