Have you seen the return spring on these things? I've been tempted on many occasion to put a decent spring in one, but I have to believe the engineers are smarter than me, so I have'nt messed with it. My only concern for trying a heavier spring would be side load on the swash plate bearing, honestly have'nt had the time to play around with one(out the door as fast as they get built) Scott, I find the same problem with the bushings on all of them, I think they're way too tight, your fix sounds like a good one to me. As for the "shock absorber" the main function of the dampener is to prevent sudden wheel lock up, saftey factor as well as prevents tearing up your grass. Have'nt heard anything official about this problem from Kubota (probably does'nt exist yet) I'm not a big fan of jumping in and "modifying" brand new expensive equipment until I've had a chance to take a good look at the big picture and see how my change will effect everything else in the system (have seen some pretty ugly stuff happen when guys are "smarter than the guys who designed it"). If I do figure something reasonable out or hear of a good fix from kubota I'll let you know.