TWT -- The Wrenching Thread (7 Viewers)

[little_joe]

My gx kicked my ass this weekend. couldnt do my hub bearing swaps because the freaking nuts were torqued beyond my Milwaukee m18 fuel 1/2 inch impact gun, breaker bar and hi lift jack handle, and way beyond my back's strength and flexibility. I found a piston in the passenger front caliper that is seized, so new calipers got added to the shopping list. didnt even remove the drivers side front wheel (where my bad bearing is). I need to rebuild both parking brakes, and the drivers rear axle seal has been compromised for a while. drivers parking brake was covered in grease, and came apart with broken hardware. so, that was this afternoon's parts order.

i think I'm gonna break down and take it to a shop, and just swipe the plastic and not care....first non-maintenance work in 4 years of ownership, so I shouldn't complain.

Just having to do the parking brakes is enough reason to farm out the work. If I ever have to do mine again, I'm selling.

Really strange about the front hub nuts, mine came off easily (they were original, from the factory).

 

[stevezero]

Just having to do the parking brakes is enough reason to farm out the work. If I ever have to do mine again, I'm selling.

Really strange about the front hub nuts, mine came off easily (they were original, from the factory).

mine had been gone into before I bought it. I think the cvs had been rebooted or replaced previously. somebody hadn't skipped upper body day when they torqued mine. LOL

you gotta be a proctologist surgeon to try to work through the tiny holes in the hub to get the parking brake retainers in.

 

[JohnVee]

@stevezero I got a guy for that!

 

[S4Cruiser]

Got my weekend all laid out on the table. Duramax continues to receive PM loving.

Oem upper control arms, lower ball joints, tie rod ends, sway bar bushings and end links, oem calipers, oem pads/rotors, oem soft brake lines, idler arm/bracket, pitman arm, and bilstein shocks.

Will probably take the course of a week or more to finish working on it in the evenings.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

New alt with a new reg today. Hopefully the fix sticks this time.

Put a new Ac compressor in while in there. This year moonshine will get air conditioning.

 

[stevezero]

Worked on my daughter's lx450 today. Installed a Painless Hot Shot relay kit for the starter, and then tore into the rear brakes.


She got every mile out of the rear rotors, and is now getting my EBC brake kit. shaved the passenger side down to almost memeworthy status. Of course the parking brake had to explode when trying to slide the rotor off. An hour of banging cussing, and more prying, banging, it finally came off. Thank goodness that I have the FSM. I had a set of parking brake shoes and hardware set aside. Reassembled the parking brake, that took forever. one of the caliper slide boots is torn, so ive got to wait on that. we tackled the drivers side in about an hour. I hope to get the boots, so we can bleed the rears and button them up. Hoping I only need to swap pads in up front. I'm not ready for a front axle rebuild on that one.

ih8parkingbrakes

 

[CUSailor]

Just wanted to say thanks to @roadstr6 and @Roxx for getting me advice over the last few weeks on replacing my shackles and bushings. No torch, good ratchet and jack and sledgehammer got it taken care of. It's like I got a whole new suspension.

 

[roadstr6]

400 miles after replacing the head gasket on my 80, and after sending all my injectors to RC Fuel Injection for cleaning and flow testing, I had an injector to fail. The truck went from hero to zero on my ride home from work and limped along on five cylinders. Nothing happening in #2 cylinder. Spark was good. Compression was good on #2 (190 psi) Injector was getting 12v from the ECM. Ohm test showed that the #2 injector was open inside. Coil must have broken. So here we are again:

I’ve done a little research and apparently I’m not the only one who has had injector failure shortly after service. Damned if you do. Damned if you don’t. Oh well...new injector on its way.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Bummer. They can clean it and test it, but can't certify it won't fail right afterwards. At least the whole head doesn't have to come off!

 

[CUSailor]

This is what i have done so far. I have to paint and fit stuff but i am procrastinating

View attachment 2215412

@Roxx what do you plan on doing with that fiberglass roof in the corner? Let me know if it ends up going up for sale.

 

[Roxx]

I will let you know but like everyone here knows I am a hoarder “upss. This is not the AA meeting”.
It wont go for sale. That truck is an 1983 and should worth more in it original condition. Then if i die my heirs can bring it back to whatever they want.

on another note i made a biggggg mistake installing my lift!!! I switch front to back. I didnt know F is for front and R is for rear. In spanish is not like that. So i spend my early release from work today swapping them back. Truck is back to what it supposed to be.

@Roxx what do you plan on doing with that fiberglass roof in the corner? Let me know if it ends up going up for sale.

 

[CUSailor]

I will let you know but like everyone here knows I am a hoarder “upss. This is not the AA meeting”.
It wont go for sale. That truck is an 1983 and should worth more in it original condition. Then if i die my heirs can bring it back to whatever they want.

on another note i made a biggggg mistake installing my lift!!! I switch front to back. I didnt know F is for front and R is for rear. In spanish is not like that. So i spend my early release from work today swapping them back. Truck is back to what it supposed to be.

I'm all for keeping it all stock, especially for the kiddos. Glad you got the truck fixed, my wife still gets push and pull on doors backwards, often to my not so helpful amusement.

 

[lumbee1]

Cruiser is finally running again after more than a month of downtime.

Back in December, I installed a backup camera to the radio on the Cruiser. After installation of the camera, the Cruiser wouldn't hold a charge and while driving the to the Christmas party, symptoms were pointing to the alternator. I purchased new alternator brushes to fix the charging system, however when I pulled the alternator, I found the bearings were shot and the belts were close to breaking. During removal of the alternator, I broke the rusty belt tensioner bolt. With the alt out, I discovered that the alternator bearings were dry and locking up causing the belts to slip. I could have rebuilt the alt but instead took this opportunity to upgrade my 80A to a 140A Jag alternator. Unfortunately as I was removing tension from the AC pulley I broke the AC belt tensioner. The AC pulley belt was in much better shape but overdue for a new belt. I also removed the idler pulley since it doesn't do much but at least the idler pulley spun smoothly.

With the battery box out and while in there, I found that my SAE power steering trans cooler hose was a little oversized for the metric nipples and the spring clamps weren't holding very well allowing fluid to leak. I added stainless screw clamps in addition to the spring clamps to each line on the PS system.

While in there, I installed the @Fourrunner ground/starter wire upgrade kit. Super beefy wires that match the beefy mechanical parts of the Cruiser. 1/0 and 4 AWG wires for battery to chassis, TC to chassis, block to battery, starter to battery, and head to chassis.

FJ80 Heavy Duty Battery Cables

I have been offering this kit for FJ60/FJ62 and have put together a similar kit for the FJ80's. The kit costs $140.00 shipped (within US). International shipping is available (additional shipping costs will be added). The kit includes 4 cables and battery terminal connectors. This kit fits...

forum.ih8mud.com

The new alternator arrived and I quickly realized that this wouldn't be a plug and play. Modifications to the alt case and belt tensioner were required to make the new alt work. I must have installed the alternator 20 or 30 times trying to fine tune the fit. New belts were installed along with a new AC pulley, new belt tensioner block and bolt. Anti-seize was slathered on every bolt.

Finally alternator was installed but I didn't want 140A running over a 8 AWG wire and tiny fusible link. I stripped back the wire wrap and TEQ electrical tape and removed the OEM alt to battery wire. I ordered a 4 AWG custom alt to battery cable from @Fourrunner and built a 10 AWG fusible link. Ideally, the fusible link should be 8 AWG (fusible link recommendations are 4 sizes down) but 8 AWG fusible link it A) expensive and B) almost impossible to find. 10 AWG and 3 spares will be fine. The new fusible link looks OEM except for the orange color. I routed the new cable the same as OEM and added the wire jacket and covered with electrical tape.

After everything was buttoned up, I found yet another problem. When I installed the backup camera, I must have had the doors open too long and drained the battery. The battery would no longer hold a charge and had to be replaced. For a whopping $4.59, I exchanged my 2 year old battery at Costco for a new 24F.

With the dash apart still from the backup camera install, I replaced all the bulbs in the HVAC and switches. I had a dead light in the HVAC and it was difficult to see settings at night.

New battery, new belts, new alt and the truck starts great. Idle voltage is 14.6V. The headlights are brighter, the engine purrs, and my annoying startup squeal is gone. HVAC lighting is nice and bright and even the original interior lighting is brighter. I haven't checked the lightbar on the ARB to see if there is a difference in output. I've still got to weld a mounting block on my swingout arm for the backup camera and route the wiring into the cab.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

In the future, for large gauge circuit protection, ANL fuses, MRBF fuses, or blue sea circuit breakers, can work instead of fusible links.

 

[NCFJ]

MRBF fuse holder from Blue Sea. Used them on boats and have been using them on builds in the shop from day one. Starter cable and charge cable attach to the main lug, everything else runs through fuses.

 

[Comet]

I finally got back up to North Carolina to replace my front diff and bring the 99 100 back to Georgia. I would say the front diff was shot. Thank you Dickie Bell. View attachment 2209496

View attachment 2209497

All too familiar with that issue. You say Dickie Bell, I say poser rock for the spider gears on the front third member. At least I didn’t have to make everything line up perfect like you do. Sorry for that loss!!

 

[ROBsSON]

Got some new 3rds for the 60 turned them and got greasy counts as wrenching right??

 

[S4Cruiser]

Finally...had some time to wrench on the Duramax. Last weekend was a bust.

Passenger side done. The lower ball joint wasn’t as bad as I thought. I chose to beat the living s*** out of it to remove vs using a press. Used a press to install the new one. Caliper bolts are torqued to 221 ft lbs...that’s a lot! I also ended up being a torsion bar unloading tool which made dealing with the suspension components less dangerous with no built up tension.

Also...these are the original brake pads, 122k miles. Crazy how much life was left!

 

[S4Cruiser]

Finished the other side this afternoon with only one real struggle...the dumbass that replaced the hub assembly 4 years ago used red lock tight in lieu of buying a big as torque wrench. That dumbass was me, lol. Getting those two caliper bolts out took a big ass breaker bar!

Plan to change out the pitman arm, idler arm / bracket and rear shocks! Then off to the alignment store!

Also...banging out the lower ball joints worked much better and a lot faster then trying to press them out. I did the press way when I helped my uncle do his and that sucked. This time I just beat the hell out of them and it took maybe 30 whacks and then they popped right out. Ball joints tend to be an intimidating maintenance item...they were for me before.

 

[Cornhusker]

All too familiar with that issue. You say Dickie Bell, I say poser rock for the spider gears on the front third member. At least I didn’t have to make everything line up perfect like you do. Sorry for that loss!!

I know you feel my pain. I remember hearing you did that at Logan's Run. I did this at the Relic Run last year, but with everything going on, had just got it done. I got a good front diff out of a 2001 and just switched them out. Plus, it's an upgrade to the 4 Pinion. I will be brining the 80 this year now that I have one. My 100 is my daily now.