'89 Stepside "Way Cool Jr."

[Erik the Awful]

FedEx arrived this afternoon and my goal for this weekend is now sitting on the cart.

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Oil change - Valvoline 10w30 & Wix filter
Control arm bushings - Prothane
Upper and lower ball joints - Mevotech
Inner and outer tie rod ends - Mevotech
Pitman and idler arm - whatever was on my shelf
Motor mounts - whatever was on my shelf
Shocks - Monroe

Yes, those are the rear shocks on the cart, the fronts are supposed to arrive tomorrow. Once all that's done I can go get an alignment, some new Milestars, and take it to the track for a 1/4 mile time.

Provided the wild storms predicted tonight don't have me waking up in Oz.

 

[Erik the Awful]

Lotsa rain last night, no spinny windy stuff. Our Colonel turned us loose early today, so I jumped in headfirst on the front end rebuild. The steering linkage is free of everything but the steering box. The one tool I don't have in my collection is a pitman arm tool. Once I hit that hurdle, I switched to the passenger front suspension.

I can't tell you how many times I've told people to forego the pickle fork and just hit both sides of the spindle at the same time with hammers to pop the ball joint loose. "If it doesn't come free you aren't hitting it hard enough." Until now, it's been sound advice. I hit that motherf*r as hard as I could, many times, and it wouldn't turn loose. I finally popped the brakes off, dropped the lower control arm and spindle together, and chucked them in my vise. As soon as I hit the ball joint with my air hammer, it fell out.

I torched the rubber bushings out, and discovered on the upper arm you have to cut the sleeves to get the bushings out. Guess what the bushing kit doesn't come with? New sleeves for the upper control arms. Patriot Steel is closed until Tuesday. What are the chances I can find 15/16" tubing with a 9/16" inner diameter? Utter stupidity on Prothane's part.

The sway bar end links are shot - the bushings were pretty far gone and the bolts were out of place, rubbing on the control arms and nearly broken through. Yay.

While I was in there I tossed the old 4 gauge starter wire and put in a 1/0 cable. Personally, I think 2 gauge is plenty, but when somebody says, "Hey, I have this big battery cable and don't need it. Do you have a use for it?", you just take it.

I got the new upper ball joint installed, and tomorrow I'll get my wife to help me press the lowers in place. The motor mounts still need replaced, but then I can start reassembly. I was hoping to get the passenger side motor mount done this evening, but I cleaned up a bit early to go to dinner with the in-laws.

Tomorrow morning I'm hitting up O'Reillys for a $20 pitman arm puller and getting as much reassembled as I can. RockAuto just got another $70 from me for a sway bar bushing kit, wheel seals, brake hoses, and a pitman shaft seal kit for the steering box. With any luck I won't need a $300 steering box and the new seals will stop the steering leak. I'm guessing parts won't arrive until Tuesday or Wednesday, and it'll be a whole 'nother work afternoon to finish up after that. Ugh.

No, I'm not painting the control arms while they're out. Rust isn't that much of an issue here, and this ain't a pretty-boy truck. I did take the time to dunk them in the solvent tank and scrub the road gunk off them. I do have standards.

 

[Frank Enstein]

Yesterday I used Way Cool Jr. to move my daughter's bed to a house across town that she and her friends are renting. During the drive I got a few clunks from the front suspension, and the steering has been loosening up lately. I think the rubber bushings were holding together fine until they started getting some miles. I still need to spend a weekend tearing the doors down, installing new seals, cleaning the latches, and finishing out the door panels, but the front suspension may take precedence.

I have a new pitman and idler arm sitting on my shelf, and I'm looking at purchasing a Redhead steering box. Last night I looked at Polyurethane and "Prothane" bushings. I'm leaning towards the Prothane because it's twenty dollars cheaper. Anybody have any input on the differences? I'm also lightly considering factory-style rubber bushings, but I can't help wanting better performance.

I've been a little disappointed in the straight-line acceleration of the truck, but I'm beginning to realize it's because I'm comparing it to my Mustang. I drove my race team captain's GMT900 Suburban during the trip to Sebring, and I kept thinking something was wrong with his truck because it had no power. Now that I'm a little more confident in it, I'd like to take Way Cool Jr. to Thunder Valley and get a quarter mile time, but I need to get tires on it first, and there's no point on getting new tires until I get an alignment, and there's no point in getting an alignment until I rebuild the front suspension, and that's going to take dollars and time.

Ugh. Two things I'm always running short of.

Energy Suspension or Prothane is like Coke vs. Pepsi. I have used both in my stuff and I buy the cheaper one. Sometimes one will have sleeves or hardware and the other one doesn't and that helps to make the decision. I use this stuff to lube them
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/upi-3008
And I add grease zerks too.

 

[Erik the Awful]

The kit came with lube, but the lack of upper sleeves is what ticks me off. Seriously, where am I going to find the right size tubing? That doesn't look like a standard size.

 

[Frank Enstein]

A friend with a lathe? I went down that road with Frank. I ended up buying Moog bushings and torched them apart for the sleeves.
I never use rubber bushings if I can help it.

I also cut a grease channel in the bushings that line up with the zerk. You drill all the way through the bushing and then run an annulus around the I.D. and O.D. of the bushing. Don't overdo it. The grooves only need to be deep enough for the bushing to be not shiny.

The pre packaged grease is very sticky but I feel they don't give you enough.

The Icechicken started squeaking after 60,000 miles so I added grease fittings then. The super lube has no stinky odor but it doesn't wash off either so wear gloves. UMI recommends that stuff for their bushings and Summit was out of the other goop so I tried it. I like it!

The Icechicken is getting Delrin bushings when it comes apart next. I overdid the grease grooves in the bushings. Experience is the best teacher but the tuition is kinda high in the School of Hard Knocks!

 

[Erik the Awful]

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Lunch break! The steering and suspension are completely out of the truck now. I got the pitman puller this morning, and the tabs for pulling were too wide to fit across the pitman shaft. Five minutes with the grinder and they fit, but I still had to use the full force of my impact wrench to get it off. The threads in the pitman puller are a little janky now. Also, now that I ground the tabs, they're too wide to grip the pitman and idler arm on the center link. Doh! Double whack-a-hammer didn't work on loosening them either. WTH is wrong with this truck? The only part I need to keep is the center link, and everything bolted to it is stuck bad. The pitman and idler are garbage - what looseness I had in the steering was coming from them.

All four of the the old ball joints were nice and snug and moved smoothly, but all of them had busted boots. None of the control arm bushings were bad, but they were due for replacement. The inner fenders were already bent for access to the control arm nuts, so I can tell someone did this job before. They just didn't use good parts.

After lunch I'm tackling the engine mounts and cleaning the second set of control arms for bushings. Once that's done, I won't be able to do much else until the rest of the parts arrive. RockAuto says Friday. We'll see if the Post Office can hit that target.

 

[Erik the Awful]

I finished for the day and got some dinner. The motor mounts are in. The old ones don't look terrible, but I wanted new mounts in the truck, and I'll reuse the old mounts on another project. All four of the control arms are cleaned up and have ball joints and new bushings installed.

The c-clamp in Harbor Freight's balljoint removal and installation tool is way too puny to be effective, but the other bits are absolute gold in conjunction with a 20 ton press. I also used the press to get the pitman and idler arms off the center link. I couldn't get a good angle on the inner tie rod ends, so I chucked the center link in my vise and double-hammered the f* out of it with my biggest hammer and a mini-sledge. They both popped loose when I hit them hard enough. I put the center link in the solvent tank and scrubbed it clean. It looks like new.

I didn't get new tie rod adjusters, and I didn't put them in the newest parts order, so I soaked them in PB Blaster for the night. I'm going to hit 'em with the prybar tomorrow and see if they come free. They don't look bad, so I'm hopeful. If nothing else, O'Reillys should have them in stock.

I would totally love to take the opportunity to cut a coil off the springs and put a set of lowered spindles in right now, but I really want to retain the ablity to crawl under the truck and work on it. Doing so been a god-send so far.

 

[Erik the Awful]

View media item 32785For those of you needing upper sleeves, I used 1/2" schedule 80 pipe and used my press to sleeve it with some random conduit I had in my scrap pile. I then lubed the sleeve and used the press to get the sleeve into the bushing. I have no idea what the specs were on the conduit, but I'd assume it was .040" wall and probably 7/8" inner diameter. The pipe had a .832" outer diameter and cost me about $17 for 10'.

I like to give props where due, and the Post Office did me solid. Rock Auto predicted the parts I ordered Friday would arrive this coming Friday, but the Post Office's two day delivery arrived in two business days, as advertised. Unfortunately I was busy Tuesday, so yesterday I did the work on the upper sleeves, and this evening after I got off work I spent four hours in the shop, reassembling the front suspension.

If you tackle this, you'll want to get a flapper wheel on your grinder and clean up the sockets for the lower control arms. I didn't do that on the passenger side, and I spent half an hour beating the control arm into place. The rough edges of the bolt holes shaved a bit of the bushings off. On the drivers side I thought ahead a bit and used the flap wheel to smooth it out. It made a huge difference, but still shaved a bit of the bushing.

The front suspension is back together, the sway bar is in place, the front shocks are in, I put the new pitman arm seals in the steering box, and I stabbed the steering box into place.

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Tomorrow I need to load up my engine hoist and help a coworker remount his brick mailbox because some teenager thought his phone was more important than his driving. Hopefully some time this weekend I can finish installing the steering, change the oil, change the rear shocks, and align the truck. More than likely, I'll just veg out and collapse on the couch to watch Formula 1: Drive to Survive on Netflix.

 

[PlayingWithTBI]

I have no idea what the specs were on the conduit, but I'd assume it was .040" wall and probably 7/8" inner diameter. The pipe had a .832" outer diameter and cost me about $17 for 10'.

Sounds like 3/4" EMT (Electrical Metal Tubing), maybe? Although $17 sounds a little high for EMT.

 

[Erik the Awful]

The $17 was for the schedule 80 pipe. The conduit was stuff I had laying around. I don't know what it originally came from, but I'm sure glad I had it on hand.