my ass twitches

[ttocs]

I never gave it a whole lot of thought until now and I have to agree. The installer in me can understand the ease of install that would say to slot it but the structural engineer in me is screaming "ARE YOU FREAKING NUTS?!". If it were me designing it I would not have slotted it but it is what it is. I took it out today and was so happy to not have any twitching when shifting or letting off the gas and I even goosed it in 3rd gear enough to get a good push and it is holding strong now.

So now that the ass isn't twitchin, the brakes are under moderate braking the front passenger side will make a noise that I am not sure how to describe. It isn't a grinding more like a pulsing and I confirmed its not locking up when it does this. I replaced the hub on that side before and I wonder if it isn't tight enough even though I know I went and got a torque wrench to get it to the 250 ft/lbs I think it was. My plan tomorrow is to get it back in the air and see if I can push/pull/move the wheel at all and after that remove it, inspect and bleed the system again. Any other suggestions?

 

[Werecow]

Well glad you got that part figgered out anyhoo!! I know that's gotta feel a lot better without your ass twitching!!

 

[lwarrior1016]

Make sure your caliper and caliper bracket are both torqued. Also double check your control arm and strut torque. Any of those parts can move under braking.

 

[Werecow]

I've not gone back to look and see, but what brand of brake calipers are you running??

 

[ttocs]

I've not gone back to look and see, but what brand of brake calipers are you running??

baer.

 

[Werecow]

K, I remember reading somewhere that Baer brakes have to be shimmed somewhere in one of the brackets or calipers?? Does this sound right?? I may be way off in left field here, but I remember seeing that somewhere... Don't know if that would apply to what's causing your issue or not just first thing that popped in my head..

 

[ttocs]

I know the rear brakes get shimmed because of the way they float on the axle but I do not recall the front brakes needing shimming. I have all my manuals and will be checking them out for torque specs and instructions.

 

[ttocs]

So I got the car off the ground and I hope I found the problem(s). I just went over the entire front end to make sure everything was ugga dugga tight and found some bolts that were a little hard to get to with my torque wrench or I didn't have a open ended wrench big enough so I went and got some more bigger tools and learned the joy of leverage.

While the car was up I also took the time to bleed all 4 corners again and I was surprised how much air came out. I also found a fitting on the line lock that was loose and leaking so hopefully now all the air is out of it. I also took the time to run a wire for a low oil warning as well as one that goes to my voltage regulator that will alert me on the digital dash if there is a problem(next on my project list to wire up). While I was messing with the regulator I made an adjustment to it so I would finally see more than 14v.

I had to loosen the steering rack to make sure the control arm bolts were tight enough and after that the steering alignment was off again.... Now I just need a dry surface to try it out and of course they forecast rain the next 3 days.

 

[lwarrior1016]

Why is your alignment off after just pulling the rack off the k member? You didn’t move any adjustment points.

 

[white95]

Why is your alignment off after just pulling the rack off the k member? You didn’t move any adjustment points.

I’m going to suspect the Air ride bro... We could never get our mini trucks to keep an alignment. It didn’t help we were slamming them on the deck to throw sparks lol

 

[ttocs]

Why is your alignment off after just pulling the rack off the k member? You didn’t move any adjustment points.

I thought the same but I could not see anything that looked different or that had moved/become loose. My only thought was that in tightening up the lower control arms to double ugga dugga tight that maybe something moved a little bit in/out enough to make a difference? I think that might have been why the camber was off on the drivers side after the alignment. Today has been bad and I am only starting to get out of my restroom to hope to get into the garage

 

[ttocs]

well I went through the front end and got some larger tools to allow me to ensure everything was tight. I had to drop the steering rack to get to the lower control arm bolts and then for some reason after that the steering was out of alignment and the camber on the drivers side seemed like it was off a bit again. I bled the brakes at all 4 corner since it was off the ground and I thought it might be the brakes making the noise and got some air out of them. The noise is still there but it does sound a little different. I use to think it was coming from the passenger front but now I think its actually more from under the car around the shifter area. I can feel the rubbing in the stick when it does it. I thought it might be the stifflers driveshaft safety loop I installed but I looked around it last time it was up and I didn't see any signs of rubbing and I am not sure what could be moving under braking to make it rub.

So its going back up on jack stands again to take a closer look around the middle of the car now. I already decided shortly after I put it on the ground last night that I was going to put a couple of tach welds on those rear mounting brackets to be sure that they are not moving at all. Any other ideas on what around the middle of the car could be moving or allowing movement to cause this? I have gone over the front and back now fairly well but I have not looked in the middle a whole lot. I wonder if the stifflers trans mount/safety loop is not right or tight now...

 

[lwarrior1016]

Driveshaft rubbing the e brake cables?

 

[ttocs]

I had not considered it but I will check. There has to be signs of the rubbing if I look a little closer I just have been concentrating on the ends of the car. This time I am putting it on the top of the jack stands so the middle will be easy to get to. Damn I want a lift....

 

[ttocs]

its hard to get a pic of it but this is the driveshaft and the stifflers safety loop. You can see some marks on the widest part of the yoke and if you look behind it on the top of the loop you might be able to see where it rubbed the powder off off the loop. It wasn't much and the camera surprisingly catches the marks on the shaft as well as it does as they are not deep and actually hard to see. At one point when I first got it fired up I was getting noise from the DSL bumping the floor so I used the option to narrow the hoop a tad to keep it from rubbing. I opened up the hoop and was able to wedge some sound damping between the top of the hoop and the floor to keep noises down and hopefully clear the dsl now.

looking at the pics now I am amazed at how bad they look because in person it was not so obvious at first.

I am taking a break now but I am going to go back and weld some fender washers on the end of the Ridetech rear axle brackets where its slotted to ensure they hold on and are still removable. Its raining again today and probably tomorrow so I might also take the time with the wheels up to improve the x-pipes hanger as I have never really been happy with it.

 

[ttocs]

good news - no more noise!
bad news - the alignment is way off again.

I was going over all the nuts/bolts on the car and found more than a few that were loose, or even missing... I have had a bad habit(that ends yesterday) of getting them tight enough and saying I will go get the torque wrench to tighten them all down and then I get sick or forget. As I was going under the car to look at the driveshaft safety loop I happened to glance up and notice that the nut that goes on the bolt for the front of the lower/rear control arm was missing. I wondered how I did this but then I realized that it was because I could not get my torque wrench up under the car at ride height to torque those down and needed a 15/16" wrench to do the front control arms so I got the wrench and a folding handle 1/2" ratchet to tighten them down.

Unfortunately in tightening down the front control arms to the proper specs I made some kind of adjustment to the steering and why it need adjusting now.

There was another thing that I thought might be causing the DSL to rub the driveshaft dealing with the exhaust hanger. I put something together when I installed it all and it held nice and tight but it also rested against the DSL lower portion and I was afraid that if the exhaust were to move that it was causing the dsl to move. So I got some scrap angle iron and barstock and welded a new one together. Its hard to see but there is 1/8" between it and the dsl and I know its strong enough to hold. Here is what I had.

And here is the new one.

and like I said thankfully I have no more noise now from the rear end and now I know that all the bolts are tight and I know the rear end brackets will not slip off now with the washers welded to them. Forgive my welding I am like ferris buehler with his clarinet, I have never had one lesson and it was hard to weld up under the car but the rear end bracket will not come off now with out the bolt being removed.

 

[lwarrior1016]

All of this looks like progress in the right direction. Accept now you have to pay for another alignment, that part sucks.

 

[ttocs]

I need to get it a little better aligned before I can make the drive to the shop that isn't scared of air ride to do it over. The problem is that I have two compressed disks in my lower back that I REALLY upset while doing all the work I did over the weekend. I didn't do anything the last two days but it had me awake this morning at 1:30 because it hurt to roll over. Its killing me because I really think now its ready to drive(till I find the next problem) once it is pointed straight. I was still just happy when it fired right up for that short ride, really happy when it stayed cool and beyond happy when I pushed the brakes in and it didn't rub. I might break down and risk the rona and get a message today/tomorrow. Damn its times like this that I miss my ex that went to school for massage therapy but then I remember that once she got the degree and started doing it full time she never rubbed my shoulders again.

 

[Werecow]

Oh man, I've got a screwed up back, so I feels for ya. Ppl that have never had to live with chronic lower back pain don't know what hurting is... I suffer with it all the time, that's one reason why the progress has been so slow on mine..

 

[ttocs]

my back normally does not slow me down much but I have learned over the years when it gets upset all I can do is sit and wait. I am probably going to call in a favor from a friend to help with the alignment and do the dirty work. He likes to wrench and I know wants to go for a ride in it...