[beer-toe]

What coild you running with your tundra 5100's?

[JBurt]

@beer-toe With the 5100's I've got some OME 881's and I've got OME 906's in the rear with OME nitrocharger comfort shocks. Sorry that took a while. I didn't see your post.

I finally got to do some work on the rig tonight. I've had one hell of a time keeping it aligned. I've got a 3 year alignment contract with Sears (no firestone here) and it seems to work for a while and then it's off and my tires keep wearing more on the inside and feathering. It is irritating. At least they're cheap tires right?

Anyways I've had a clunking on the passenger side sometimes and I hadn't been able to diagnose it. I got it aligned on a road trip about a month ago and it still had problems wandering so I got under her and had my wife shake the wheel. There was tons of play in the passenger side lca. Bushings were shot.

February of '13 I rebuilt the front end but had a hell of a time with my lca bushings on the drivers side and I thought about doing the passenger side and said screw it. They looked fine. Live and learn.

So tonight isn't too bad, it's only 86* at 2am. I started around 10pm. The only problem I had with the replacement was I couldn't get the cam sleeve and bolt out of the rear without unbolting the steering rack. When I undid the boot look what I saw:



So I think that pool of atf tells me replacing a steering rack is in my future.

Everything else was a breeze. The cam sleeves slid off like they were buttered. There are some things that are really great about living in the desert. The old bushings popped right out and the new ones slid right in. I used a bottle jack between the bushings to press them out and then I used my bench vice with 2 pairs of pliers to press the new ones in. My sister helped and 2 sets of hands were very nice.

When I did the front end work I used Autozone lbj's and one already crapped out on me so I replaced this one with an OEM while I had everything apart.

Then as I was reassembling everything I noticed I tore a mighty fine hole in my cv boot. Crap. Well I won't be driving her till I get it rebooted. Maybe next tues or wed. I thought about getting a whole new napa axle and then rebooting later to have a spare, but I think I'll reboot now and buy a spare later.

Lastly I wanted to see how the drivers side cams were lined up. I think I found out why the alignment was off:



The cam isn't even between the tabs. Think sears will compensate my unevenly worn tires?

I still have yet to find someone to weld on my sliders. They are sitting painted in my garage lonely and unloved. I've got the money for either savage skids or uca's but I can't get the okay to use it until I've finished the "last project". Oh well.

[habanero]

2am? Good morning JBurt!

Practice makes perfect- glad to see the rt lower control arm was a 'breeze'.

Wish I'd kept my oe cvs and rebooted them rather than get the rebuilds. Ah well, now I've got a junkyard axle off a lower mileage yota for a spare plus those rebuilt axles off the 96 for the 99.

There's gotta be somebody in Utah that can decently weld on a set of sliders.

[JBurt]

I actually know a few in Utah that have offered, but I only get up there to visit family.

I live in a small city in southwest CA and the two welding shops I got quotes from wanted at lest $200. I can wait. I have a friend that does side jobs but his life is pretty crazy right now. We'll see.

I figured I'd go napa reman and then reboot this one and then put is on the drivers side (boots don't look good either) then reboot than one and have a spare.

Hab it's nice you've got two for all the spares. My brother lives across the street and he's got a 99 but it's a 2wd so I'm not going to be able to swipe his cv's.

I looked more at that cam adjuster and the cam on the sleeve (front side of the above picture) is off 180* from the cam nut that is in the picture. How that works I don't know. They are keyed to fit only one way. Damn sears in Provo (last alignment shop).

[habanero]

Ha, sorry, I got your location and one of my other favorites mixed up. You're not going to drive to Utah just to have some welding done?
(yeah, can see why you're biding your time....$200 is a lot of pocket change- or a couple of weeks of groceries if you shop careful enough.)

Only one of the trucks will fit the spare cvs I have, finally went manual hubs on the 96, got sick of chewing boots, though stretching them helped immensely. I'll also be able to unlock and drive home to repair in the comfort of my own driveway. Less worries for the 96 and more cvs for the 99.

That is some pretty special 'aligning' there. You sure you didn't have to pay extra to have the guy sit the thing up on top of one of the stops rather than fit it in properly?

[JBurt]

Well I finally got the rig back on the road. I did hit a small problem when I was putting the replacement in. It came like this.



After research and starting a thread, the consensus is to just bend it back where it wont scrape the add engagement tube and put it in. Seems to have worked so far.

I got it aligned yesterday and it drives straight and doesn't have super squeaky bushings, which is nice. I told the shop about the cam adjuster being 180* out of phase but haven't checked to see if they fixed it. I was out hunting when it got done and I didn't pick it up. They also didn't give me an alignment report. Lame. I'll have to swing by and get one today.

After I got home I had only slept 3 out of 39 consecutive hours and I didn't feel like going back outside and crawling under my rig. I'll inspect it when I get home from work.

Hab - When you stretched the boots, what kind of new clamps did you use? Also with all those extra cv's for the 99 are you going to get out and break some? I know you said that it had some big updates coming but I haven't seen any yet. Did he decide he still likes volvos better?

[habanero]

The hubby crumpled the 99's rear stock skid into a ball when we went wheeling this weekend, I think he's trying to tell me something....
At some point we'll need to armor the 99, at least skids and sliders to get him started. Step 1) find magic money tree.
The 96 was primo wheeling and I had a good ole time. Life should always be so much fun!

So far neither of us has broken a cv, just me and my stupid boots. Knock on wood! I used small thin hose clamps out of a Land Rover Discovery (boneyard freebie) and wire rather than trying to glue them as others have done. Did the trick for me alright. All I needed to do was get the lobes generally apart so they'd stop eating holes in each other.
Now that I've changed out hubs I leave them unlocked (not turning) until needed. I like that even better.

I'm not sure how far you've followed as far as things done to the 96. I put in an axle with e-locker and wired it up w/o an ecu. Also put in the manual hubs I mentioned and a new speed sensor at the transfer case since I no longer have front abs and therefore a very unreliable speedometer. Now I've got a working speedometer. Oh, also replaced the front dif to match the e-locker rear axle since it had 4.30 and I was stock 4.10. That was fun.
Other than that it's been maintain maintain maintain.

Good to hear you're driving straight again and hope you get something resembling sleep soon! I agree with that little dust shield just needing a little bending, have done the same.

[JBurt]

That stinks about the gas tank. Lil skips?

I'm still subscribed to your yotatech thread. Changing the clamshell is something I hope that I never have to do. At least you got a whole replacement diff with the gears you wanted and you didn't have to swap gears too. Can you tell a big difference between the 4.10's and the 4.30's?

I'm pretty jealous of the manual hubs. When this boot went I seriously just contemplated calling around in San Diego for manual taco spindles and cv's, but I didn't think I'd enjoy walking to work for that long.

Last night I slept 7 hours so that was good. Hopefully it cools off here I can get out and do some wheeling and biking.

[habanero]

Originally Posted by JBurt

That stinks about the gas tank. Lil skips?

Changing the clamshell is something I hope that I never have to do. Can you tell a big difference between the 4.10's and the 4.30's?

Last night I slept 7 hours so that was good. Hopefully it cools off here I can get out and do some wheeling and biking.

Ah, sorry, it's that little skid just past the front one. Not supposed to look like:


4.30s= maybe more oomph? Speedo is closer- only 4% off. Put BFG A/Ts around that same time so my experience is skewed by the slower tires. Yeah, now I've got a cheap scissor-style tranny jack for some reason....worked great for getting the dif up onto the crossmember while maneuvering around the oil pan and seemingly everything else attached to the truck.

That'd be primo, wheeling and biking is all good. Glad you got some sleep too.

[JBurt]

That sleep was really good, and that skid is really not. What kind did you end up going with?

I didn't want to update this until everything was done but here goes. I took the 4runner into Sears on Tuesday and they said they'd look at it Wednesday morning. Big surprise: they found that the alignment sleeve was stripped from the nut being off 180*.

They ordered new parts from Toyota (as I requested, thankfully), but they needed the bolt, sleeve, and nut. The parts got in on Thursday but one of them was the wrong part. Our local dealership does that a lot and I've decided to always just order online, mostly from Camelback.

Well the parts should get in on Monday afternoon and then maybe I'll have a rig back. In an effort to replace anything that might be detrimental to my alignment and tire wear I've been replacing everything that can have an effect.

Last night I ordered new rear lower control arms from Mstudt. He's using 1.5" .25 wall dom tubing and Summit flex joints. They should do nicely as a replacement for my bent stockers.

Then in the next week or two I'll order some new upper control arms for the front. After that if my alignment still gets out of what every few weeks I'm out of ideas.

[JBurt]

Update: Sears replaced the alignment bolt, sleeve, and nut. However they ordered the wrong parts 2 times and I didn't have my truck for over a week.

When I finally did get it back, the first thing I did in the parking lot was to see if they fixed what they said they were going to fix.

This is what I saw:



So the bolt is new and the stop is completely flattened. The manager had already gone home so I emailed him and then called the next day.

So somehow I've got to figure out how to fix this. I'm thinking I could have someone weld some kind of stop to that. When I get a written quote and take it back to Sears they might pay for the work. Any ideas?

[JBurt]

Well some good things should happen soon.

Sears is paying for the work to fix the alignment tab. The shop said they could remove those alignment tabs, bend them, and weld it back on, but I think I'm going to go with these. I don't want to have to worry about this again. Should be able to get them in and welded on next week. Sears has a satisfaction guarantee on their alignment contract and I think after they fix everything I might get my money back. This has been way more of a headache than it should be. I haven't even mentioned the bad alignment started my tire feathering.

There are never any 3rd gens in the one yard we have here, but 700 miles away my uncle found a few and he is sending me some 2001 parts. Cupholder center console, auto up\down window switches, sunglass holder sunroof switches, passenger side grab handle to put on the drivers side, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something else.

I also ordered some allpro uca's. Should be here in less than 3 weeks.

When the shop welds on the alignment tabs they're also going to weld on my sliders.

I also got a mv-50 compressor to replace my cheapo $9 harbor freight one so I should be able to air up in about 15 minutes instead of 115.

Good stuff.

And since I know how we all like pictures I did see this at the local yard last friday



Bobbed bed, internal cage, dual cases, and beat to hell on the inside. There was also some really old winch on the front I didn't recognize. I called my wife and she said no. Too bad.

[JBurt]

And I almost forgot. I got my rear lca's from @MStudt . They are awesome. Easy install. My only regret is that I wish I had got the adjustables like Connor.

Here's the main reason for the new lca's
http://i806.photobucket.com/albums/y...psaf8qlnwc.jpg



And the new compared to the old



They ride very quiet and very smooth with the flex joints, and they should be beefy enough to take anything I can throw at them. Thumbs up for a fantastic product. Very worth it.

On a side note the ones I took off have a weird thing on one end that aren't on the other stock arms I've seen.

[KidVermicious]

Looks like some kinda bumpstop? Is it rubber?

[JBurt]

Metal