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Here's a quick view of the shop. We are blessed to be renting a place with an attached 2 car garage and a detached 2 1/2. Total man cave set up. It's the first time I have had this kind of space to work on my cars.
I know that feeling. It was my lifelong dream to have a place with a decent-sized garage I could actually do some work in. And it was the happiest day of my life when it finally happened, lol.
Originally Posted by Cimmerian
I will say though that if $2000 is your upper limit for toys, don't ever get into firearms.
Day 2 - Spoiler alert didn't finish :-( Started at 7am and stupid me farted around with the front diff way too long. The instructions do say to drop the drivers lower a-arm but they didn't call it an a-arm so I missed it. I tried wiggling that bad boy all different ways and had a hard time getting past the lower a-arm - Doh... Take it off dumbass... So my kid showed up at 9:30am and we muscle the diff out. It's not that heavy and when you get all the right bits disconnected it come out like it's supposed to... There were a few bits and surprises like having to pull the battery box to get to the diff shifter which meant pulling the grill. NOt hard to do but being extra careful the first time I do stuff on this.
First order of business was to give the diff a bath... I hate working on a greasy build...
First cut - God hates a coward...
The instructions say to use a sawzall - nope... I used an angle grinder with a cut-off wheel, then a grinding disk and finished with a sanding disk. Once you start blending it in it becomes obvious what shape they want. I strongly recommend sealing the diff to avoid grinding crap to get inside.
Ready to go (except the silver spacer inside the bushings) - At this point I know I am late and it's about 1:15pm... The front end is back together but nothing is tightened up. We had to make a parts run for drivers side shaft, a u-joint that came apart, two new stabilizer bar links and some 80/90 weight. Restarted at about 2:30 as my kid had to eat so we made a quickie stop on the way home for take out. I don't eat during the day. I started the front end assembly and he started on the rears. He ran into serious issues as the pivot bolts are frozen in the bushings and will probably need to be cut out. He was getting frustrated and so I had him finish up the 2 remaining wheels. I'll post the rest of the day two build stuff tomorrow before work. I gotta eat!!! I could eat the *** outta an elephant right now.
Definitely - I've done like 4 rear suspension builds. two on my MGs and the worst one was a 2005 Sable - that thing was a rust disaster. Good thing about doing a lift is that I will spend 20 seconds trying to get the bolts out then the angle grinder - the kit comes with shackles so I am not trying to save any hardware...
Originally Posted by Hess13x
Looks like you guys are making good progress. The rear shackle bolts can be a real pain!
Driver's side wheel well all clean up and painted and ready for build... You can see on the front driveshaft the upper u-joint cap came off and spilled the needles. I have put them back before but in this case I bought a new u-joint and just stole the cap...
Passenger side ready for build...
Diff is in a driver's side done... The upper a-arms needed a bit of malleting to get into place. Also we had to thread the drive shaft through the a-arm before inserting the inner a-arm bolts. The build wasn't difficult at all. It went actually pretty quick. It probably took 30-45 minutes to get the diff in and all the bolts lined up. I think it's easier going in because it's dropped 2 1/2 inches...
Passenger side all done. My kid did the wheel wells using a textured underbody paint. It's non-rubberized but has a gritty finish. He doesn't like the shiny black rims so he is going to go over the rims with the same paint. He also plans to paint the skirt of the truck with the stuff around the lower mold line. I think it will be pretty good.
Here you can see the forward upper mount on the drivers side next to the CV joint. As I said my kid painted the wheel wells - I'd have done a better job but it's his truck so...
Here's a shot across the bottom. A few small bits to finish - connect the shifter cable and bracket and install battery box and grill. Install the sway bar. Tighten up all the bolts on the suspension system. Oil the tranny and install the t-bar keys and torque them up. Install the calipers and I think it's done. Then I'll hit the rears. Should be able to sneak outta work early and get most if not all done tonight. So far we have 19 hours into the build.
Not sure what you mean but the drive axles and driveshaft in theory drop 2 inches. Because only the forward mounts are extended the box also rotates forward - I suppose this also improves the angle of the forward driveshaft into the transfer case as the rear gets angled upwards.
Originally Posted by eshaw
So how far down does the pinion move when the bracket is installed?
10-27-2019, 05:34 PM
