DHarmon81's 1992 ECSB 1500 4x4

[eric.s.t]

man, that truck looks nice! i love the color. Its awesome to see the before/duren/after pictures!

 

[DHarmon81]

Santa Clause came today. Eff yes. Time to get to work.

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[am92]

Wow, thats gonna be epic!

 

[ChrisAU]

Santa Clause came today. Eff yes. Time to get to work.

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Nice! Our trucks are going to be very very similar!

 

[DHarmon81]

Haha hell yeah. I mean I'll have Hankook MT's in a 315/75R16 but aside from that very similar. Have to wait til tomorrow to get my jack and jack stands. ChrisAU any tips for the install? Doing this myself. First time ever.

 

[ChrisAU]

Haha hell yeah. I mean I'll have Hankook MT's in a 315/75R16 but aside from that very similar. Have to wait til tomorrow to get my jack and jack stands. ChrisAU any tips for the install? Doing this myself. First time ever.

Mine was the first one I had ever done too. I did have help from a guy who had done a couple of NBS lifts though. Tips? Get a lot of liquid wrench, and lather everything up every day for a few days before you plan on starting tear down. If you and a buddy dedicate an entire weekend (lets say 14 hours a day) you should be able to it and take your time.

If your ball joints have never been changed, go ahead and get new ones. Preferably MOOG from RockAuto. If they are OEM and aren't bad yet, don't worry, you will destroy them when taking everything apart! Go ahead and get a new pitman arm and idler arm too, along with tie rod ends and adjusting sleeves, and sway bar end links. Its just smart to replace these things (if they haven't been replaced before) while you have it apart.

One place where people don't think they will need to lube ahead of time but they REALLY need to is the t-bars, both in the keys and in the lower control arms. My truck has zero rust and I had not one seized bolt (out of the over 100 you will undo doing this), BUT my t-bars were a ***** to get out of the control arms. We actually beat them out using a large bolt stuck in the other side of the lca while simultaneously beating the torsion key crossmember towards the back of the truck.

Unless you have a super-super deep 22MM socket, you will need to cut the ends off the rear u-bolts. We used a portable bandsaw.

Remove the spare tire if you have one before attempting to remove the shocks.

Make sure you have the bushings for the shocks correct before beating them into their holes.

The upper control arms mounts are tight; lube up the bushings and gently tap them in. It can take a while.

I really can't say how many times I said "Hey, throw me the lube" and "it just needs a little convincing". However I didn't even use one whole bottle of liquid wrench, that stuff comes in a bottomless can.

Get a large bag of 4 letter words, and throw in my favorite 5 letter one. If something isn't coming off or going on correctly, usually a lot of cuss words will make it work.

Have a creeper or other wheeled object handy to set the diff on when you unbolt it. That bugger is heavy.

I found a 19MM deep well socket to be absolutely crucial, as well as a set of standard box wrenches of course. I also have a 25" 1/2" breaker bar. VERY useful.

DO NOT PUT THREADLOCKER on the nuts for the u-bolts until after you have cut off the ends. The nuts are a type of lock nut already, and it takes a lot of effort to get them high enough on the u-bolts to where you have 2-3" you can cut off. If you put threadlocker in the nuts before you start threading them up, they will start to seize while you are cutting the ends off to make it where your deep well can get to the nuts! I promise!

 

[ChrisAU]

Will you be doing it in a shop with a lift or in the driveway? We used a forklift haha

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[DHarmon81]

Haha ironically I live in an apartment, above an empty storage warehouse that my uncle owns where there just happens to be a forklift. Funny enough I was just talking with my dad earlier and he suggested using it lol. Good call.

 

[Horns]

Truck looks good!

 

[Fobroader]

Awesome build buddy, it looks great. Cant wait to see how it looks to be lifted!!! Oh, by the way, forklift, I approve!! Well played.