Josh S.
can't kick the habit
- Joined
- January 19, 2001
- Messages
- 1,899
- Reaction score
- 4
- City, State
- Seabeck, WA
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- '93 sport 4x4
Yo hos, I finally got my Camburg extended radius arms on. They are much longer than the stock ones. These are made out of chromoly tubing and lets just say that they are pretty damn sexy looking. The rear ends of the things sport some bigass heim joints with some sort of space shuttle bolts they gave me when I bought them. At the tune of nearly $900 with bolts and everything, they were anything but cheap, but I had to get rid of that bushing crap. The holes in the stock radius arm-frame bracket where the bushing sits were wallowed out, causing destroyage of my poly bushings I installed in there. This was from replacing my bushings a few months too late and offroading on metal to metal action. The moral of the story is: change your bushings when you need to, and if you hear a new noise on your truck, scope it out...it may end up costing you a lot.
The installation was no less than a total biotch. I figured that they were just bolt-on...little did I know that I would have to chop the heck outta my frame rails to get them dangol' brackets on.
First, I had to grind off the lip on the bottom of the passenger side frame rail so the bracket would sit flat. After this was done, we eyeballed/ measured the bracket placement and drilled the bottom 2 holes. Even with a cobalt drill bit and a plugin drill, it was still hellish. After beginning to drill the second hole underneath, it was apparent that something was wrong. The hole just kept getting deeper and deeper, not pushing through to the other side. I stuck my head up there and realized that a section of reinforcement is on the inner side of the frame rail, right in front of the stock tranny crossmember. This piece came off the rail, went straight for about 3 inches, then merged back into the frame. Needless to say, this had to be grinded off/ sliced up with the angle grinder. Me and my friend later adopted a new saying; if its not workin, grind it off! After this was over, the brackets were still not lining up properly so extensive grinding/ drilling was again enlisted to make things fit. Btw, before the grinder could fit up inside the frame rail, the catalytic converter and resonator had to be removed. By then, I was glad I had already chopped off the muffler some months back. This made things easier and the three 15mm bolts that held on the cat came off and things opened up for grinding.
After the passenger bracket was on, the drivers side one had to be tackled. This one I thought would be easier with no grinding needed. After some inspection, it was made known through much cursing and swearing that the drivers side frame rail needed to be modified as well for the bolts to be able to hold on the brackets. in short, we grinded the held outta the frame again and drilled the 4 holes needed for the bracket to be on.
I'm sorry but I gotta go to geological sciences 101 now, so the story will continue tonite. Thanks for reading and don't worry I'll take some pics and maybe someone can upload them for me...peace
The installation was no less than a total biotch. I figured that they were just bolt-on...little did I know that I would have to chop the heck outta my frame rails to get them dangol' brackets on.
First, I had to grind off the lip on the bottom of the passenger side frame rail so the bracket would sit flat. After this was done, we eyeballed/ measured the bracket placement and drilled the bottom 2 holes. Even with a cobalt drill bit and a plugin drill, it was still hellish. After beginning to drill the second hole underneath, it was apparent that something was wrong. The hole just kept getting deeper and deeper, not pushing through to the other side. I stuck my head up there and realized that a section of reinforcement is on the inner side of the frame rail, right in front of the stock tranny crossmember. This piece came off the rail, went straight for about 3 inches, then merged back into the frame. Needless to say, this had to be grinded off/ sliced up with the angle grinder. Me and my friend later adopted a new saying; if its not workin, grind it off! After this was over, the brackets were still not lining up properly so extensive grinding/ drilling was again enlisted to make things fit. Btw, before the grinder could fit up inside the frame rail, the catalytic converter and resonator had to be removed. By then, I was glad I had already chopped off the muffler some months back. This made things easier and the three 15mm bolts that held on the cat came off and things opened up for grinding.
After the passenger bracket was on, the drivers side one had to be tackled. This one I thought would be easier with no grinding needed. After some inspection, it was made known through much cursing and swearing that the drivers side frame rail needed to be modified as well for the bolts to be able to hold on the brackets. in short, we grinded the held outta the frame again and drilled the 4 holes needed for the bracket to be on.
I'm sorry but I gotta go to geological sciences 101 now, so the story will continue tonite. Thanks for reading and don't worry I'll take some pics and maybe someone can upload them for me...peace