rj58 trans bronze bushing wear?

[jeremi3210 688]

I just picked up my first rj58 and I've been doing a lot of reading about the transmissions  in these, anyway I've read a lot about the bushings in the diff and the axle tube wearing out. My question is, is there a way to check these without a teardown? The trans seems to work very good with no signs of water in it. I want to go thru it but I want to use a it as a butt buggie this summer but I don't want to wreck anything.

Edited May 28, 2015 by jeremi3210

[stevasaurus 22,234]

Sure, you can check them without opening the trans and have a good idea about those bushings.  Put the rear end on blocks and pull off the tires and the hubs.  Grab the axle and see if you have any movement up and down, and then side to side.  You should have little to no movement.  In and out should be about 1/8", but that is normal and has nothing to do with the bushings.  You can check visually, but that entails removing the axle seals.  You can then see the end of the bronze bushing...a good one will appear to be about 1/16" thick all the way around...a bad one (or going bad one) will have thin places in the bronze and some slop in the axle.  If you have no slop in the axles, I would leave the seals alone.  Those seals are about $18 apiece and are getting hard to find.  Unless someone has a few in there possession, they are only available from TORO.