Here are some photo's of Nobby's lower rear control arms.
These bushes would be lucky to 5000klms old and had turned to crap well before. The rear bushes (diff housing) went first,
leaving the fronts no choice but to lunch themselves. The fronts are the solid bush and although they are intact, they have
cracked all the way through. The rear ones have a couple of slots in them and I think this is cause of them failing, the rubber
compond combined with these slots are not designed to handle Aussie road conditions. Maybe by using 2 sets of the front ones
it could combat the issue but I really don't know if it will. The front bushes on Nobby's lower rear control arms
would of had no choice but to give up the ghost in this situation and all things considered they did all right.
On a safety note, it was a little bit hard to diagnose while Nobby was out adventuring until in depth discussions when he arrived
at my place, so here is the benefit of his ordeal trying to get to here.
The KJ was experiencing a death wobble but not just in the steering like a solid axle 4WD but a whole vehicle wobble. As it came into
a corner it gave the feeling of slidding into the corner and wouldn't stop suspension rebound giving the death wobble feeling. It could have
all come unstuck and gone horribly wrong but the Blue KJ has lived through the experience. If you ever have an experience like this,
please pull over and check all of your rear bushes (remember that this not the first set of new bushes to fail). Visually check the location
of the bush in realation to the bolt (it should look close to centre). If all looks fine then it is time to put some pressure on them and look
for excessive movement (they will move a bit as they are rubber) I use a podge bar but a very large screw driver will do, you need to get
some leverage. Please if anyone else can add how they check bushes do so, I don't mind as long as we are all helping each other.
Hopefully Nobby's trip home today is less eventful.
Jas