Front lift 3/4 Done

[Mac]

After 8 hours of four people plugging away on a sunday, the lift is almost done. We would of finished but I insisted that we find a way to replace the axle pivot bushings. A 3/8" drill bit and a handheld propane torche did the trick to remove the stock bushing which were basically melted into place. The other problem I had was super lift sent me the wrong castlenuts with the replacement steering and they had to use an an odd size so only good auto part stores which are closed on sundays carried them. Other than that all that is left to do is put the axle back on and intall the coil springs and brake line. Unfortunately the base hobby shop closed at 5:00pm and won't be open until thursday so that is where my truck sits, still on the lift. I hope to God that there are'nt any upcoming earthquakes.

 

[Kyle K.]

Mac hey i am awaiting my coils as we speak... when they come in i will have jsut about the whole package, 4 guys eight hours... what was the trouble? is there anything i should do ahead of time to avoid the excess manhours? i know i'm going to cut the rivets on the radius arm crossmember ahead of time so i can just unbolt it the day of the lift, anything else i can do beforehand?, , i'll probably also install the new crossmember ahead of time ... if i can find anyone to sell me the steel tubing i need. anyway any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Mac]

Okay, before ou start, make sure you have anyone helping ypu. The trouble I ran into was the guys helping me got crazy and removed too many rivets on the body mount. Problem solvewd with some grade 8 bolts. The other problem was the axle pivot bushings which I insisted be swaped over to polyeurothane which probably didn't need to be done but hey, what the hell. Also four people digging into one tool box and throwing tools onto the ground instead of replacing them caused lost time in the next person searching for tools, still can't find my 1/2" to 3/8" socket adapter. The pitman arm also did not want to come off. No matter how much torque we put on the pitman arm puller, beating it, swearing at it, it wouldn't budge. We finnally grinded it as close as we possibly dared to the splines with a four inch grinder and soaked it in penetrating oil to get it off. Make sure you keep track of bolts and hardware theat you need to reuse. I spent a half hour searching through a dumpster for a coil spring retainer washer. Avideo camera would have been great to record this because half the stuff we did could have paid for the lift. Oh well, you live, you learn.

 

[Kyle K.]

OKay so... i am very meticulous about my tools, half the time i work in a gravel driveway so you have to keep an eye on them that and my 2 year old daughter loves to help bang on the truck. sounds like besides the radius arm rivets the only other thing i can do prior is free the pitman arm, then set it back in place wiith some antiseize. thanx for the advice, i usually only have one other helper besides my daughter so too many hands in the cookie jar shouldn't be a problem.