1993 GMC Sierra K1500 Z71

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Ivan90

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I bought a brand new 1993 GMC Sierra K1500 Z71 from Bleecker GMC in Fayetteville NC on March 9 1993, for $24,611.52. I still have the window sticker and bill of sale. So here we are 25 years later and the truck is still running great. 165,000 miles. It was in storage 5 years while I was overseas, and when I returned a year ago it needed lots of work. My dad graciously brought it back to life and installed a PowerTorque refurbished engine. Over the past year I’ve tried to make it shine again like it did 25 years ago, because to me its still new, and I intend to keep it for the long haul.
 

Ivan90

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Living in Mississippi now, so A/C is important. I replaced the compressor, accumulator, and orifice tube in January. Got the parts from Autozone. Pretty easy job.
 

Ivan90

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My truck spent many years up north, with salted winter roads, so my steering and suspension needed replacing. I bought these Sunex jack stands, which I really like. They're every bit worth the cost. I tried a couple other ratchet-style stands, but never felt comfortable. These Sunex stands are solid. And yes that's the daytona floor jack from harbor freight.

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Ivan90

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My truck rattled when I went over rough terrain. I took it to a local shop here in Jackson MS and asked them to diagnose the rattle: was it suspension, steering, exhaust, or engine mount? After charging me a ridiculous cost of labor, the shop owner said he didn't know what the rattle was, and he doesn’t recommend working on my truck at all, that it was too rusted and not worth repairing. What??? You've got to be kidding!!! “What if your frame breaks, then we’d have to weld it back together, and fixing your suspension could cost several thousand dollars, and its not worth it.” You've got to be kidding me! Guess he hadn't seen too many trucks from up north. So I decided to go it alone, with Youtube (Chris Fix and the Car Doctor). Not too complicated. My frame is solid, and no rust on the truck body.
But here's the link to 1998Suburban's forum page where I learned actually how to go about this: http://www.tahoeyukonforum.com/thre...on-your-1997-1999-obs-4x4-step-by-step.78839/ He gave me the confidence to proceed.
 

Ivan90

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I bought all Moog parts. Rock Auto had the cheapest price and fastest delivery. My total cost for parts was about $450.00. That included Moog upper control arms with balljoints, lower ball joints, lower control arm bushings, inner and outer tie rods with connecting sleeves, swaybar links, swaybar bushings, heavy duty cam bolt set, pitman arm, idler arm, and idler arm bracket. I needed some new tools. My brother gave me an impact wrench, and I bought impact and regular deepwell and normal socket sets from harborfreight, a set of 6-point box/open end wrenches (I love 6-point wrenches), prybars, and lots of tools. The best purchase was the Sunex 10-ton jack stands.
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This was a four-day project over my four-day weekend. I could have completed it quicker, but didn’t want to rush. I also borrowed tools from Autozone, Advance Auto, and O'Reillys.

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Ivan90

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Teardown. I started on Saturday afternoon. Chocked the rear right tire, applied emergency brake, lifted the truck securely on stands, removed the wheels and hub nuts.
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Removed the brake caliper and hung with a coat hanger out of the way.

Loosened the CV axle bolts, shock absorber bolts, and loosened the UCA and LCA bolts and nuts. I was relieved that I could turn all four LCA bolts – meaning they hadn’t rusted solid to the LCA bushings.

Had some trouble getting the ball joints and tie rods disconnected from the steering knuckle, the nuts had rusted tight. I had to cut through a couple nuts with my angle grinder and a cutting blade.

Found it difficult to reach the swaybar links from under the LCAs. It was hard to get a socket up inside the LCA to grip the swaybar link nut. I went ahead and cut through the swaybar links since I was replacing them anyway.

Everything came apart easily. I was concerned about the swaybar bushing frame bolts – they’re 10-1.5 metric bolts, with a small 10mm head. They were old and rusty, and I was concerned the head would strip. But I was lucky – with my impact wrench, they all released without stripping.

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Ivan90

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I was concerned about my torsion bars. They were rusted solid into the LCAs. So I removed the cross member, and everything came apart nicely, although one torsion bar remained attached to the LCA. I pounded on it with a 12-lb sledge and it wouldn’t budge. Then I figured it out. I held up the LCA end and dropped the torsion bar vertically into my cement floor a couple times. The LCA released easily that way.

I didn’t worry about getting the same torsion bar back with the same LCA, I didn’t mark my torsion key retaining bolts, and the same thing for shocks, rotors, CV axles… for me it didn’t matter much left side vs right side.

Second hardest thing I had to do: remove the LCA ball joints. Mine is a ’93, so it has stamped LCAs, with riveted ball joints. The instructions say to drill halfway through the rivet, remove the rivet head, then punch. This didn’t work for me. The rivets were rusted solid to the balljoints. I ended up having to drill all the way through to get them out. Installing the new balljoints was easy though, they slid in place and bolted very snug.

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Ivan90

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Removing the LCA bushings was the absolutely hardest thing I had to do. I bought a 20-ton press from harbor freight, and they wouldn’t budge. I saw videos of people burning them out – and that would have been the absolutely easiest way, but that’s not an option in my neighborhood... So I drilled into the rubber and used the ball joint press clamp screw to force out the inner steel sleeve and rubber. The outer bushing sleeve was quite another story. Still would not budge. I used my high tension hacksaw to cut into the sleeve, then used a chisel to pound it out. This took hours of effort and lots of hits from my 3-lb hammer. After the first one came out, I was able to get the others out by drilling into the sides instead of cutting with the hacksaw, and pounding them out.

I was concerned about getting the new LCA bushings back in, but this was easy. I kept them overnight in the freezer, lubed them with grease, and cleaned up the LCA bushing holes with Emory paper. They pressed right in with very little effort. Everything was very easy after this point!

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Ivan90

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I had to remove my steering gearbox to change the pitman arm. Changing out my steering components was very easy since I had the swaybar removed. I definitely needed the pitman arm tool for this.

I was concerned with the Moog swaybar bushings. I saw someone’s review saying they didn’t fit – they were too big. At first I thought so as well- they seemed bigger than the ones that I removed. However when I tightened the swaybar bushing bracket, they tightened all the way down and the bushing fit perfect. They were the right size. I wonder if whoever wrote the review saying they were too big- didn’t try to tighten them down all the way.
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