Thanx, ive been searching for that info quite some time.. computer idiot here.. i have a build thread somewhere here for this frame off project. We call it.. Mater Jim.
its been fun and very challenging using a 97 4x4 chassis and everything blazer/jimmy. The front end shop freaked out and will not touch anything modified.. i tried to explain, its a 97 4x4 jimmy underneath.. but alas. I will get it soon


97 firewall going in

Edges removed and matches front cab mounts.

 

54 dodge panel

3 years between pix..

 

So I got around to doing the spark plugs and wires today...It was definitely time, I spent a lot of time searching up different methods for getting to the #3 plug but once I actually got in there it wasn't too bad. I saved that one for last because I thought it was going to take me a bit longer but I ended up just sticking the extension in as far as I could into the socket while the socket was on the plug and could get just enough leverage to get the plug out and the new one back in easy peasy! Took it out for a drive after and it's running really nice.

 

A body lift makes spark plugs easy! I just go straight in through the fender well. I don't even have to open the hood!

 

Ahh guys it never ends... So after the alignment, it was still driving really bad on the highways especially anything over 80km/h you could really feel the vibration in the steering wheel and it was maybe even more apparent with my truck being aligned and everything else brand new on it too, it felt like a wheel was about to fly off. So I put the old tires back on the front today when I had some spare time and took it for a test drive. Got it up to highway speed and felt nothing in the steering wheel it was driving amazing and felt amazing. So I will put my old tires on the rear as well and drop all my tires back off at the shop and hopefully, that will be the end of that and I can, at last, have a nice driving blazer on my new tires.

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So I got all the tires rebalanced at my shop. It was something about the static and dynamic balance of the tire and they were balanced with no weights on the front face of them the first time. So he hammered some weights on the face of all the rims and it is now driving much better, not perfect, but actually drivable now. Today I had some time to look into a weird squeal that's been coming from the rear lately, was driving me crazy. Turned out the inevitable rust had gotten to my dust shield and the paint was peeling in such a way it was scraping on the rotor. It's not perfect now but it should work and not make noise for a while longer!



After I had that done I put the rear sway bar brackets on from the rc lift which I think might come back off in the near future as it seems it is made for the other style of sway bar that goes behind the diff. With the brackets on my sway bar the link angle is pretty bad and it leaves a fairly big gap between the bushings in the links because of that.

 

Glad you got the tires some what sorted. You think about using balance beads?

 

Yeah I’ve thought about it, being these are only 31’s it seems like they should be able to be balanced correctly so they drive nice with normal weights. Also from what I have read the beads won’t balance the tire very well until you get moving at a decent speed. I think I’ll have some spare time tomorrow I’m gonna use to try and fix up the sway bar angles and I might try just rotating the tires I’m not expecting much but it’s worth a try. If that yields nothing I will need to clarify if my shop is using a road force balancer or not and if not go get them road force balanced! As I said in the last post it drives a lot better now I can drive up to around 100 without vibrations but it’s just not good enough for me especially when the speed limit on the highway is 100 or 110 km/h.

 

Have you looked into your ujoints and other bushings? These can cause the vibration at different speeds... I want to say my driveshaft ujoint in the past gave vibrations at highway speeds, but not lower...

 

Alright, guys... I was really fed up with not being able to drive at highway speeds without feeling like my truck was going to fall apart. I also knew it had to be something with my new rims and tires as I would put my old tires back on and the truck would drive good again. So I had a very long talk with my mechanic and he even showed me a wheel on the balancer showing it was zeroed out, the two things I walked away with were hub-centric rings or balancing beads. Let me add some back story here when I put my rims on I had bought hub-centric rings however they were approx 0.5mm too big to fit in the rim. I called up the place I got the rims from and they said that pro comp does not recommend hub-centric rings on any steel wheels they make and should be centered with the lug nuts. Long story short the rings were never put on. So that day I bored out all my rims to fit the hub-centric rings exactly and to my surprise, the vibration went away. I have been driving it with the rings for about a week now and it has been smooth sailing at highway speeds, much better experience to drive!