Builds Gerry's Build thread: "If it happens again I'm buying an Abrams" (3 Viewers)

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Up on a two post lift theres no way to load the wheels, not to mention the “full droop” cv angle and rear ds angle could change things a bit. Your front diff is the very set of gears i ever did, it would be interesting to see how the install held up. How long has it been? Mileage on those gears?
 
Good questions - 🫤

Yeah 2 post lift- they did this (driveline check) with my F350. So I’m speaking to the 70mph issue specifically, not the other things you listed. Logically (my logic lol) If you’re checking driveline for imbalance, or runout issues it prob doesn’t need to have road force applied. Tires and suspension yes to road force - but you’ve probably had your tires road force balanced already to rule that out (right?) and your suspension is new.

Physically installing the differentials into the housings is straight forward and I don’t know anything you could really screw up in the process to create an imbalance issue unless you dropped the diff on the flange and bent or dinged it.
 
Ryan, 75k on the gears so far. I have no reason to believe they're an issue other than having looked at (almost) everything else.

Andy, if it's a drive shaft issue, wouldn't running it at extreme full droop have some kind of impact on results? Or maybe throw false results if it weren't an issue with drive shaft in normal operation positing?
 
We could pull the front diff and look at the pattern on the gears, check bearing pre load and make sure everything looks okay.. having sat in the truck with you for long distances at those speeds, i doubt its the gear set, but you never know.. i know its on both of you wheels, street and trail, so thats not it.. theres a set of bearings inisde the spindles that supports the inboard of the outer stubs on the cvs, ive seen those fail, might be worth looking at too
 
Why not pull front and rear DS (one by one of course :rolleyes: ) to rule out the drive shafts? That's how I found my vibration issue last time.
 
I did my rack bushings tonight. I hated it. Air hammer is a must. Old bushings were out in 20ish minutes, new ones were in after about 3ish hours of being really irritable.

SuperPro blue polys went in. The old ones were not terrible, save for the upper DS bushing that was not only torn but the shell also cracked. After I finished, I put on new OEM TREs. Tomorrow/Saturday/Sunday I'll be rebuilding all 4 front control arm with new bushings, installing new CVs and axle flanges, installing a new OEM front drive shaft, and hopefully something will get better. I can throw money at it, and if it doesn't work, I can throw tools across the garage.
 
I did my rack bushings tonight. I hated it. Air hammer is a must. Old bushings were out in 20ish minutes, new ones were in after about 3ish hours of being really irritable.

SuperPro blue polys went in. The old ones were not terrible, save for the upper DS bushing that was not only torn but the shell also cracked. After I finished, I put on new OEM TREs. Tomorrow/Saturday/Sunday I'll be rebuilding all 4 front control arm with new bushings, installing new CVs and axle flanges, installing a new OEM front drive shaft, and hopefully something will get better. I can throw money at it, and if it doesn't work, I can throw tools across the garage.
I did control arm bushings on my '03 Sequoia, and eventually will do them on the '05 LX that I'm rebuilding. It's a pain, but if you're frugal like me, totally worth it! Way cheaper to buy OEM bushings than a whole OEM control arm assembly.
 
I did my rack bushings tonight. I hated it. Air hammer is a must. Old bushings were out in 20ish minutes, new ones were in after about 3ish hours of being really irritable.

SuperPro blue polys went in. The old ones were not terrible, save for the upper DS bushing that was not only torn but the shell also cracked. After I finished, I put on new OEM TREs. Tomorrow/Saturday/Sunday I'll be rebuilding all 4 front control arm with new bushings, installing new CVs and axle flanges, installing a new OEM front drive shaft, and hopefully something will get better. I can throw money at it, and if it doesn't work, I can throw tools across the garage.

I did the rack bushings, hated my life. I'm also about to embark on the LCA rebuild and potentially new CV's. The joys of a 300K vehicle.
 
I did control arm bushings on my '03 Sequoia, and eventually will do them on the '05 LX that I'm rebuilding. It's a pain, but if you're frugal like me, totally worth it! Way cheaper to buy OEM bushings than a whole OEM control arm assembly.
In my case, I've already replaced these complete arms 96k miles ago. The BJs are good, but I'm really curious to see how 96k pretty hard miles have treated the rubber bushings. I'm putting poly in place. Reluctantly.


I did the rack bushings, hated my life. I'm also about to embark on the LCA rebuild and potentially new CV's. The joys of a 300K vehicle.
Well I'll have all the secrets to share with you after this weekend!
 
Did you swap in the OEM torsion bars? Curious how those feel and support your weight compared to the tough dogs.
 
Did you swap in the OEM torsion bars? Curious how those feel and support your weight compared to the tough dogs.

Not yet. I'm still debating them. I think I'll install everything else and see how the truck feels, and go from there.
 
Started on the DS today. So far I've gotten the torsion bar out, I've replaced the bushings in the UCA, and now I'm taking a break before going in for LCA and CV. 2 trips to depot, and about 2 hours of phone calls, I think my time of about 2.5 hours actual work time isn't terrible. I'm certainly at no risk of making money as a mechanic!

UCA bushings were definitely worn compared to the new ones. That alone should give me some good improvement, I think.
 
Keep at it - it will be worth it in the end.

... or something like that.
 
OK I'm taking the evening now. This is a bigger pain than I was anticipating but not impossible yet.

UCA on DS is done and reinstalled.

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I drained the front diff to pull the CV. The damn CV came apart in my hands. This was the trail repair part from my winky-face carnage back in October. THIS is why we don't use cheap axles. It got me off the trail, but that's all it was good for. I'll carry a spare OEM in the truck for trail days.

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While drilling out the rubber in the UCAs earlier, my drill gave up the ghost. I think I've had it 10 years, time to call Ridgid and get a new one sent out to me. I don't think this is what they had in mind when they named the line "Fuego"

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Sent the torsion bar receiving cups into my sand blaster. Splines don't get any cleaner than this.

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I also got the LCA removed this evening, pressed out the #1 and #2 bushings, and installed the new SuperPro polys. Easy enough. The #1 side is giving me issues with reinstall so I'm going to revisit it tomorrow.


Once the DS is totally finished, I'll swap to the PS and undoubtedly have the whole project finished in 2 hours. Because that's how things work.
 
Now, I may have dropped out of college to open a bar... But I can read. Instructions say thin flange at front of housing, thick flange at the rear side. They're both as far in to the housing as they can go, though there is a bit of a gap between them inside (visible through little hole in the arm). The sleeve is as long as the OEM bushing, so that's cool, but the bushings are overall slightly wider than the sleeve. Maybe a BFH will do the trick. I'm just thinking out loud here.

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Sounds like a manufacturing defect. Any poly's I've used in the past were dimensionally the same between the bushing and the sleeves, regardless of manufacture. The image on their site shows no extra material between the 2 pieces.

If it were me I'd shave the bushings down flush.
 
Sounds like a manufacturing defect. Any poly's I've used in the past were dimensionally the same between the bushing and the sleeves, regardless of manufacture. The image on their site shows no extra material between the 2 pieces.

If it were me I'd shave the bushings down flush.
So far this may be in the running for best idea. 2nd best so far is from @2000UZJ to put a floor jack under it and press it up in to the tabs.
 
So far this may be in the running for best idea. 2nd best so far is from @2000UZJ to put a floor jack under it and press it up in to the tabs.

I'm guessing the other side is the same dimensions? Maybe it's a one off mistake by Superpro.

I'd hesitate to force them in since the pickup point will need to spread to accommodate the extra material and more so because the poly's won't compress like a rubber bushing.

If the sleeve/bush is the same width as the oem unit, that tells me the bushing itself is too wide.
 

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