alrighty, quick little update. i was able to get everything done in the bottom of post #10!









started Thursday morning (thanksgiving). Thursday and Friday were pretty much get everything out/off the front end. i started with attempting to drain the front diff oil before i forgot and popped the CVs; well it turns out the drain plug was 100% stripped. so that was not a good start. i still need to weld a tool/nut to it to get it off. my local dealer actually keeps these in stock, so im not the only one getting stripped drain plugs

It was just me working on my rig so i had to get creative with certain items. while i certainly do not recommend it, you can see i shoved a piece of tubing between the upper mounting point for the shock and the LCA. that allowed the spindle/knuckle to stay out of the way while i was working on everything. the big downside being if i hit it or knocked the spindle off it would likely damage the uniball from the weight of the knuckle and gravity. luckily i was very careful and i took my 'spacers' out as soon as i could. it really just needed to be there when i was removing the CVs and installing the new ones.

If you need to do CVs and you havent done other items, such as LCA bushings, rack bushings, etc. i recommend you just all do this at once while its all apart and save yourself the headache. i didnt want to spend any additional money on the front end right now, but i also recommend you do the sway stuff while youre at it. that is whats up next

For those of you buying the $83 new napa axles like i did, they come fully dressed with the appropriate metal seals on the axle itself, so you dont need to transfer the metal ones from your torn up CVs to the napa ones, which is nice. also make sure you get the diff oil seals from them. a seal puller takes them out in no time. they're SKF seals which are really nice.

i found out in the @mtbtim videos that the FSM calls for pushing in the diff oil seals 5.5 mms and not to go too far. an easy trick i used was take a picture of the seals before you remove them, reference later if needed but basically both sides are 'flush' with the housing. knowing that if i pushed in the seals too far id need to get new ones as the seal puller i have absolutely junks the seals. what i ended up doing was driving the seals in to be ALMOST flush with the housing knowing that they were likely a millimeter or so too far out, i smacked the CVs in with a brass tipped punch and let the CVs seat the seals to the correct depth. this took all of the guess work out of it.

for the topside of the eim keith braces, i recommend you grind off any slag left from the mig. when the LCA/CVs are at max droop (i had the sways disconnected during reassembly, last thing i put on) you could see that the cv boot was resting on the top brace you weld in. not necessarily a problem for people who never disco their sway, but if you do and you let the front droop, the boot will make contact with the brace and if you have slag on it, it will greatly shorten the life of the boot. once everything is compressed at static there is ample room between the brace and the boot.

when i popped off my TREs they felt fine, but the alignment shop couldnt align it because they said the left TRE was bad and likely creating the rack movement they detected. live and learn i suppose. i will be picking up my OEM TREs today after work and installing on thursday and trying my hand at an alignment again. hoping to god its just the TREs and not the inners as i need that money to spend on sway bar stuff.

next up:
TREs & alignment
PCK weld in
sway bar bushings and extended links
xternal tranny cooler with the radiator cooler blocked off
finish my steering wheel project
extended rear brake line (fronts will be later, pads are still good)