will you take a pic of the safety spacer issue? I just swapped to misalignments on the explorer and looking at going to the safety spacers as well.
Sorry, I just read this post after I fixed the issue as best as I could for now. The issue is I have the BC Broncos steering, which has their special 7* tapered bolts. The pitman arm is drilled out from the bottom, in that taper for their bolts. The bolts do not allow any wiggle and prevent the bolt holes from wallowing out. There are no misalignments on the rod ends, and not enough bolt to add them. The rod end is contacting the safety washer on the bottom and the pitman arm on the top. I clearanced the pitman arm slightly, but did not want to weaken it further. I then trimmed down the front side of the safety washer. It looks to me like it might have taken care of the binding issue, but I will really find out when I get the shocks installed. Right now the suspension is hanging down about 6" further than the shocks would allow. I don't think BC Broncos considered all that travel when they designed their steering.
I think the real fix would be to drill out the pitman arm to accept a straight bolt, but it would have to be sleeved to narrow down the hole for misalignments. All that could cause the pitman arm to be weak. Unless someone makes a tapered sleeve that is straight on the inside, I am afraid to make the hole any larger in the pitman arm.
Fixed the secondary limit strap QD mounts by cutting off the original shock mounts on the radius arms and welding on new strap mounts on the back side of the arms.
While I was under the Explorer, I noticed the oil pan, and the right side valve cover, have developed leaks. The oil pan seems to be leaking all the way around, while the valve cover is leaking towards the rear. I can figure out how to replace the valve cover gasket by taking off stuff until the valve cover is removable, but to get to the oil pan, I have to either pull the engine, or cut out the engine cross member and make a new one. Replacing the engine cross member with a removable one has been on my list of stuff to do someday, so since everything's so accessible right now, might as well get to it. I had to trim a lot off of it for the axle to clear, but it still hits that bump stop occasionally. Picture of the cut up cross member.
You can see in the picture where I made marks with my finger about where I plan on cutting out the old cross member, leaving the engine mounts intact. There should be enough room left to bolt on flat plate, with a piece of 1.5" OD DOM as the cross member. It should also give me enough room to pull the oil pan, and the new cross member be high enough that the axle will not contact it anymore. It will also be stronger than the cut up sheet metal.
If you were changing the oil pan gasket, would you replace the oil pump screen? What else should I replace as a maintenance item?
