Suspension problems
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From: The People's Republic of Colorado
First to answer your question about the torsion bars, you don't need to mess with them since you don't have to remove the lower control arms to press out the LBJ's. Even if you had to remove the LCA's, the torsion bars can be moved forward enough to get the LCA's out without touching the adjustment screws or using any special tools other than a good hammer.
Do all 4 ball joints at the same time unless you're poor, lazy and can do your own alignments. I don't see wear in the videos but allowable wear for the UBJ's is like .008" so I probably wouldn't see an out of spec joint in the video. I wrap a hand around the UBJ's and move things around to check for looseness. Sometimes you can feel things that can't be seen.
Do all 4 ball joints at the same time unless you're poor, lazy and can do your own alignments. I don't see wear in the videos but allowable wear for the UBJ's is like .008" so I probably wouldn't see an out of spec joint in the video. I wrap a hand around the UBJ's and move things around to check for looseness. Sometimes you can feel things that can't be seen.
Another thing to check for is your camber plates. The truck came from the factory without adjustable camber plates. Instead of an offset drilled cam washer, they just have rectangular plates with holes drilled in them for the UCA bushing bolts. Those have to be replaced if you want to adjust camber/caster. FYI, as alignment dude I left the factory non-adjustable plates in there after replacing ball joints. Usually alignment checked out as long as I put the plates back like I found them. If it didn't, I replaced the plates as needed.
And yet another thing: Consider doing your own alignment. Now that saw blade angle finders are dirt cheap, they've added to the functionality of tried and true toe plates so that they measure camber and caster. I use Tenhulzen toe plates but these Tenhulzen ripoffs are half the price. The only thing that gets tricky is centering the steering wheel since they don't measure toe relative to the rear axle.
Vevor toe plates
Vevor toe plates
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From: The People's Republic of Colorado
Any recommendations for a grease gun? Never needed one before. The one Moog recommended is out 8 weeks, and everything else either seems to be junk or is $$$.
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Everything's arrived and I'll be working on this this weekend or next. How tight do the grease fittings go? Just til they bottom out? There's nothing about them in any of the instructions.
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From: The People's Republic of Colorado
Weird... I can't start the nuts on either inner tie rod end (outers are fine). I thought I'd clean up the threads but my tap/die set doesn't get anywhere near big enough. What can I do?
Last edited by COStruck; Sep 18, 2021 at 02:02 PM.
Thread Starter
Senior Member
Joined: May 2021
Posts: 2,496
Likes: 1,199
From: The People's Republic of Colorado
Thread Starter
Senior Member
Joined: May 2021
Posts: 2,496
Likes: 1,199
From: The People's Republic of Colorado
I completely regret trying to cut the Pitman arm to get it off the steering box instead of pulling the steering box. I threw in the towel at dark and it's no closer to coming off than it was when I started.
