Shock tower bushings

[Dino]

Those sandwiched bushings on top of the front shocks are beat up. I'm not sure why. They were installed properly. Do any of the auto parts stores sell any that work well or do I need to order something specific?

Nevermind. I'm ordering the stock ones. They made them that way for a reason.

[John_Kunkel]

There seems to be two different ways to install the upper shocks, one way is to slide the threaded stud through the washers and bushing (or bushings) and tighten the nut to a specified torque which few people do and that can lead to over-tightening which probably shortens the life of the bushing(s).

The other way has a steel sleeve between the upper and lower washers, when tightening against the hard sleeve there's no chance of over-tightening.

[Kern Dog]

It is interesting how terms from other automakers find their way into discussions about our cars.
Posi? Z-Bar? Shock Towers?
Mopar terminology is often weird though. What everyone calls a drive shaft, Ma Mopar calls a Propeller shaft. Technically that is right but when I think of a propeller, I think of a boat.
The Z bar term is from Chevrolet as far as I recall but the Mopar term is "Torque shaft". I like Z bar.
Shock tower is a Ford term and it is appropriate for them because the shocks and springs are like towers in the engine bay. Not so much with our cars though I'm not familiar with the proper Mopar term.

[Dino]

I torqued the nuts to spec so I'm not sure what caused them to fail. The old ones were deformed from age, but in one piece.
These arrive today:

Mopar A B C E Body 62-76 Front Shock Rubber Grommets Bushings Pair - Detroit Muscle Technologies, LLC https://share.google/iJuPj22WNI9r0TQtB

I'm not sure what the actual shock tower is called, but everyone knows what it refers to. 😄

I didn't know Mopar called it a prop shaft. That's a British term.

[doctor4766]

After Kern's comment I took a look through the service manual to see if there was a reference to the upper shock mounting location. I was checking in the suspension section, and not only could I not see a reference but I couldn't even find a section relating to shock absorbers.

[Dino]

So as I understood it, the stock bushings have the steel insert so you tighten the bolt until the ends of the steel sleeve touches the top and bottom steel "washers", and torque to 25#lbs.

I got these from DMT. I have the driver side in and have tightened it to the point where the bottom of the bushing is ballooning. Very little force is needed to turn the nut with an open end wrench. I'm looking at the other bushing, and in order to get it to trap the sleeve it would have to compress the bushing quite a bit more. That doesn't seem right.