Some more in the wild shots and then I’ll start to fill in all the nitty gritty shitty details that have developed along the way.
Now here comes the bs. To start with, I fought this thing for about a month and a half trying to get the right parts. I had some complications while putting the front suspension back together which resulted in a locking hub being destroyed, and it took about 2 weeks to finally get the right ones. Then fought for another week scratching my head when the hub still would not seat fully on one side. In the end I realized I had two seals between the knuckle and spindle by accident and it was pushing the axle further into the diff and I could not put the snap rings on the outside of the axle shaft. Once I finally noticed he extra seal everything went back together smooth as butter. This was AFTER rebuilding a spare set of spindles I had with new bearings and seals, because I thought that maybe the threads were damaged and not letting the wheel bearings seat fully when I tried to tighten and torque the spindle lock nuts. That was a very confusing and frustrating period to say the least, I think I had the front pulled apart 3 maybe 4x trying to figure out wth was going on. After that was over I was able to start test driving it and making some little alignment tweaks. I still have not taken it to a shop for an alignment check but I have it close enough that it hasn’t stopped me from blasting around on some dirt roads in the meantime.
Once all of the suspension woes were behind me it was time to address a few other things. My driver door had started sagging and I figured it was time to replace the pins and bushings. I grabbed some replacements from the parts store and found out very quickly how cheap they are. Took those back and grabbed a better quality set from LMR and all was going well until I was pressing the last pin back in and one of the bushings exploded. So I still have not gotten the doors situated and still have to roll the window down and open it from the outside. It’s aggravating but it ain’t stoping me from driving it so I’ll eventually either fix them for good or just replace the hinges completely.
Next issue was to try and get rid of a CEL that was related to the EGR. This also took about 2 weeks to finally get the correct part and it also had to be ordered from LMR.
To my surprise the new EGR valve got rid of the CEL and the truck seemed to act a little better too. Wellll that lasted until a week ago and now I have a CEL again but haven’t checked to see what code it’s throwing this time. So as it sits now I just need to scan it and see what needs to be fixed, take it for an alignment, and fix my doors.
As for my thoughts on the new suspension, I love it! The ride quality is amazing compared to the stock/leveled setup before. The longer radius arms make a world of difference driving across uneven terrain and the ride is just a lot smoother overall. It took a bit of getting used to the lack of a sway bar up front but now that I am used to it I prefer it vs having a front sway bar. I’ve mostly driven it on dirt roads close to home but did venture out to a friends house once where the roads were a mix of dirt/highway/dirt again and it handles great on the asphalt too. I even beat on it a little on one occasion and pushed it kinda hard thru some curvy backroads and it took everything I threw at it like a champ. With all that being said though, I still really wish I’d have been able to afford a long travel setup with coilovers and eventually I will either swap this truck over or if I get rid of this one the next one I build will run that setup. But for the everyday driver that wants a lift with a good stance that is very capable off-road as well this is the ticket I think.
