Yeah, the deal around here is not to add that all up (or to think about it). It'll end up making you sad. This is a vehicle I plan on handing down to my son though, and it'll be more than a decade from now before that happens.

So you don’t run sway bars at all?

Not up front. Just the rear sway bar, which I have links that are disconnectable.

The last few days have been busy. I've got the week off, so I made an appointment at Firestone to get an alignment done on Sunday the 21st at 4pm. That gives me all week to get everything put together.

Before I started tearing into it on Monday, this showed up:



Being only able to work on it while the kiddo is at the nanny's between 10am and 4pm, and after he goes to bed in the evenings, making a list is critical. Everything was out of the truck by 1pm on Tuesday. Even with the limited time, if you make a list and start ticking things off as you go along, you find that you're actually making progress.

Front suspension mostly out:



One thing that did worry me was whether or not the cam bolt sleeves were seized in the LCA's. These were the last things that were pulled out since it's easier to loosen the steering rack with the diff out of the way. Got the bolt out and was relieved when all 4 of them slid out like butter. There are new SPC cam bolts ready to replace these, but with how they looks, I'll just clean them up and reuse the originals.

I need to work on my organization skills:



Turns out the thing that I got stumped on the longest was getting the vacuum actuator hoses off the diff. Was working on them from above through the wheel well with picks and pliers for a good 30-45 minutes, before I decided to try from below. Took about 15 seconds from that angle

Took some time after everything was out on Tuesday to do some cleanup work on the frame and cross-member.

If you live in the rust belt, please look away:





One thing that really frustrated @mtbtim and @infamousRNR in their front differential replacement video was getting the stub shaft out. I've practically read through all of Zuk's install blog posts over on his sight and remember a trick he used. If you go in from the driver's side of the diff with a punch, you can easily knock it out. You can just see it on the other side of the center shaft inside of the diff from that side. Maybe this is what @mtbtim is doing now on these, but I don't recall whether that's the case.

Set it on a couple of wood blocks with space between them and give it a good whack from the driver's side (it's hardened so you won't hurt it):



Out goes the stub shaft:



Against the recommendation of @mtbtim (whose advice you should follow at all times), it was not necessary to remove the engine mount or trans mount and jack those up to remove the front diff in my instance. We'll see what happens when it goes back in the truck.

Also did the diff seal on the passenger side diff tube since it has to be switched over to the new diff, so why not:





All in all, after worrying about the used LCAs I got, they ended up cleaning up really nice. Still need to switch over the bump stops from the original LCAs, but otherwise they're ready to go in.

Strongflex LCA poly bushings from S.S.:



Ready to go in:





Things left to do (or done an not pictured):

1. Swap diff tube to new diff
2. Install Durobump diff bushings (I smell the burning rubber already)
3. Install new ITREs
4. Install new greaseable SPC UBJ (done, not pictured)

Final update on the front-end rebuild: Got everything put together pretty much by Friday afternoon (7/19/2019), with a little bit of buttoning up things on Saturday (setting final torques, picking up lost nuts, etc.).

Thursday was spent mostly getting all the old diff parts switched over to the new diff from ECGS.

Ultra black sealer for the passenger side diff tube:



No, I did not forget to put the stub shaft in the new diff:



All buttoned up with new Durobumps front diff mount bushings:





Took some extra time to clean up the eccentric bolts before putting the refurbished LCA's back in their place. They turned out to be in really good shape, so now there is an extra set of SPC cam bolts sitting on the parts shelf.

Clean enough to eat off of:



The order everything got put back together was; LCA's, steering rack, ITRE's, and then the diff. This makes it a lot easier to torque that vertical bolt that goes down from the top of the steering rack (123 ft/lbs), since the diff doesn't get in your way.

Maneuvering the diff back up into place wasn't as terrible as my expectations of doing it were. After fiddling with it on the jack for a little bit, I decided just to set it on my chest and bench the mofo up into place. Took about 10 minutes of jiggling it around once the rear mount was sitting on the cross member.

Everything back in place:





At some point in the shuffle, I somehow lost the nut that goes on the long bolt on the driver's side of the steering rack. Looking back at the previous post, there's even a picture of the thing sitting on the workbench:



Ended up calling the local Toyota dealership to get a new one from them ($3.60 with tax). I'll probably find it when the next time I sweep out the garage in a week or two.

Before putting the knuckles back in with the new SPC UBJ's installed, the coilovers were given a few more cranks with the spanner wrench. This was never really done since installing them, so the rake was a little more that 3 inches rear to front. That, along with moving the SPC UBJ's to the "G" position should help with the tire rubbing on the driver's side during hard left turns (and reversing turns). The rinky dink little spanner wrench I have just wasn't getting the job done, so a bit of a torque multiply parts were added to it with some stuff laying around.

Rinky dink:



This should do the trick:



No we're talking:



Of course, with new ITRE's, LCA's and cranking the coilovers up, that meant that the alignment was off. Getting the camber as close as possible so Firestone didn't have to mess with the eccentric bolts too much would be ideal (to keep the tire as forward as possible in the wheel well). So, out came the shade tree mechanic way of checking the camber.

A couple of carpenters squares held together with welding magnets:



The garage floor is surprising level left to right, so that helps:



Ended up not having to adjust the eccentric bolts too much to get the camber in spec once I got the alignment sheet back. It was spread eagle like Hustler center-fold on the toe though which made for an interesting drive over to get it aligned, lol!

Eccentric bolts before alignment:



Eccentric bolts after alignment:



Spec sheet (lol toe):



Steering angle inclination is a tenth of a degree out of spec, but not bad all told.

Even after losing that one nut, most everything on my list got ticked off. Was left with a couple of 35mm nuts that I'm not sure where they go, but oh well. They don't seem important. /s

Also in the last few days after getting the front-end done, there was some leftover time to finish up the dual battery tray hold-down bracket. Added a small cross bar below where the airbag sensor bolts to. Drilled a hole and added a weld on nut that aligns with an existing hole in the wheel well. This will add some more rigidity to the bracket.

Weld a nut:



Three's company:



Existing hole in the wheel well:



It's hard to see the bolt coming through below the airbag sensor, but it's there (red circle):

Took me longer than I care to admit to realize there was a sarcasm tag in there... Did you get new axles or reboot them?

-Charlie

I hate to admit that when I was whacking the ends of the CV shafts I managed to mangle the threads on the nuts (used a brass hammer even). Fortunately I keep a spare pair of CV shafts around for when the boots inevitably blow out on the originals. They had nuts in the ends as well, so these are the mangled ones

Had the AC discharged in order to remove and replace the condenser that I managed to bash a hole in when removing the crank pulley. Also put in a new receiver/drier at the same time along with all the o-rings on both of those parts. Getting it recharged this weekend, so hopefully there's no leaks

From a few years back, oops:



It was worse than I remembered:

Lol!!

this warms my heart so much lol all pictures and info in this thread is gold.

Not much going on here. Got a Smittybilt winch aluminimum winch shackle (AWS) installed last weekend. Hoping I don't get pulled over for the front license plate since it technically is partially obstructed with the LED bar in front of it.



Also figured out why I'm not getting any responses when I do a mic check on the CB: antenna wasn't plugged into the back of the radio. Also, found out that I positioned the radio too far back so the antenna interferes with bezel seating all the way.

Should be able to get that sorted out soon.

Known as a high resistance open in the trade.

How much does that shackle stick-out? This is the license plate holder I got, and it allows for 2.75" behind, likely not enough, so it would be angled upward somewhat...

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Man your putting in some hard work on you rig. Looks good man!!