Talking about the rear of my '11 F150. Specifically, the rear leaf spring bushings of the rear leaf springs; they appear to be a revoloving shackle design. I have isolated the noise to this location as it goes away if I spray them down with a hose. Spray lube doesn't help at all and once the water dries it comes back. The truck sees yearly fluid film applications so I have tried power washing the spring packs with little improvement. Degreasing the rear bushings solved the problem for half a day and when it did return was less pronounced.
Given this info, I guess my plan is to mix up some 50/50 simple green and water and just scrub the [censored] out of the rear bushings. If a second washing fails then would there be any reason to try remove/clean/reinstall or should I just move on to new bushings? I wonder if a poly bushing would be an improvement? With a heavy greasing before install and yearly fluid film maybe it would stay lubed enough to be quiet?
Given this info, I guess my plan is to mix up some 50/50 simple green and water and just scrub the [censored] out of the rear bushings. If a second washing fails then would there be any reason to try remove/clean/reinstall or should I just move on to new bushings? I wonder if a poly bushing would be an improvement? With a heavy greasing before install and yearly fluid film maybe it would stay lubed enough to be quiet?