Project Vulture

[DintDobbs]

Went to my favorite garage (a local Cadillac dealer) to have damage assessed and front-end alignment attempted (one of the few places that will actually take the time to get it straight; they charge extra for modified suspensions and do a job are worth every cent it costs).

According to the assessment, the damaged passenger LCA isn't causing any alignment issues; however, the advisor said that an alignment will be pointless without replacing the inner tie rods and lower ball joints on both sides. Cool, not unexpected. What's surprising is that they held in there this long. I abuse this truck badly.

The humorous part of this story is that I was quoted $1800 for the parts and labor, for just the ITRE's and LBJ's. I could get another Explorer for that.

MOOG ITRE's: $50/pair
MOOG OTRE's: $35/pair
MOOG LBJ's: $50/pair
MOOG LCA's: $170/pair

These are generous figures and it still comes out to just over $300, which is more than double the cost of exclusively the parts they require. Curious where they are getting their $600 ITRE's and $1000 LBJ's from.

 

[DannyW]

Went to my favorite garage (a local Cadillac dealer) to have damage assessed and front-end alignment attempted (one of the few places that will actually take the time to get it straight; they charge extra for modified suspensions and do a job are worth every cent it costs).

According to the assessment, the damaged passenger LCA isn't causing any alignment issues; however, the advisor said that an alignment will be pointless without replacing the inner tie rods and lower ball joints on both sides. Cool, not unexpected. What's surprising is that they held in there this long. I abuse this truck badly.

The humorous part of this story is that I was quoted $1800 for the parts and labor, for just the ITRE's and LBJ's. I could get another Explorer for that.

MOOG ITRE's: $50/pair
MOOG OTRE's: $35/pair
MOOG LBJ's: $50/pair
MOOG LCA's: $170/pair

These are generous figures and it still comes out to just over $300, which is more than double the cost of exclusively the parts they require. Curious where they are getting their $600 ITRE's and $1000 LBJ's from.

They would no longer be my favorite place.

 

[DintDobbs]

@DannyW It's either them, or give up front-end alignments... I've never had an alignment from anywhere else that I didn't still have to get corrected here. This is the only place that can get her to track straight.

Their parts quotes are always high, but this has got to be the highest quote for the cheapest parts I've ever seen (not that I'm keeping score). Their labor rates are about average.

 

[DintDobbs]

Well, boyos, it looks like I'm going to be sourcing new drop brackets for the front crossmember. The Superlifts are gnarled up to where they need to be either straightened out, or replaced.

My Superlift bolt-on sub-crossmember is still intact and does not appear to be bent, and to the best that I can tell, the original frame and crossmember are undamaged.

I'm considering my options, as these are not available any more in the kit, and are not sold separately. Fabrication seems more rational than bending the damaged ones back into shape.

To the best that I have found, Skyjacker, Rough Country, and Trailmaster also don't sell them separately.

Thoughts?

 

[DannyW]

Well, boyos, it looks like I'm going to be sourcing new drop brackets for the front crossmember. The Superlifts are gnarled up to where they need to be either straightened out, or replaced.

My Superlift bolt-on sub-crossmember is still intact and does not appear to be bent, and to the best that I can tell, the original frame and crossmember are undamaged.

I'm considering my options, as these are not available any more in the kit, and are not sold separately. Fabrication seems more rational than bending the damaged ones back into shape.

To the best that I have found, Skyjacker, Rough Country, and Trailmaster also don't sell them separately.

Thoughts?

Rough Country sells them separately. Order for a 98 Ranger.
Not sure on the lift height for yours - wasn't it 4"? You would have to check on that if they made a 4".

 

[DintDobbs]

@DannyW Yes, it is a 4" lift. I know RC made a 5", but I don't know of a 4".

Part of the reason I'm inclined toward fabrication is that I can have it made to fit the Superlift bolt-on sub-crossmember. Basically the drop bracket is a planned sacrificial component.

I could have an additional bracket fabricated to connect the hitch receiver and the sub-crossmember to add strength, as well. This thing is going to be thrashed around, that's why I have it.

 

[DintDobbs]

Kudos to J_Train for making this list almost 12 years ago.

superlift part numbers

Hi guys, having trouble finding the info on this site and superlift site... I'm looking into getting the K494 4" lift kit for the 99 Sport... http://www.superlift.com/Catalog.asp?P=k494#nogo I'm guessing I don't need the 9637 part as it seems to be for the Sport Trac... would I be...

www.explorerforum.com

So assuming that they're still available to be had anywhere, the parts I'm after would be

55-05-9630 Brkt, Crossmember Drop

and potentially

55-06-9630 Tube, Front Crossmember

Now, to procure sources...

 

[DintDobbs]

Called Superlift directly, ordered the drop brackets and the sway bar link kit. Minor setback.

Ordered 4 of the brackets just in case; if we don't need the rears this time, we can use them on the front when these inevitably get mangled up.

 

[DintDobbs]

Sheesh. No ETA given, no shipping cost charged, arrived this morning. Definitely enjoyed the customer experience from RealTruck.

 

[DintDobbs]

The stuff is done. I got her back finally, but this crossmember is going to need some help before she hits the trails again.

After that, she's back in order and ready for action.

 

[410Fortune]

Both the superlift and the rough country drop brackets actually drop the lower control arm and front differential 3.5”

The 4” or 5 or 6” Lift numbers come from cranking the torsion bars to achieve an actual 4-6” of lift. 5” is the sweet spot because we all know the t bar front ends still ride good with 1.5” of “ lift” over stock, more then that and they start to ride like a hay wagon (because no down travel is available at ride height)

Glad to see the parts are available
Fixing that crossmember should not be too terribly hard. I would remove it, heat it and use a vise/hammer to straighten the ear…
Or like you said recreate the part…

 

[DintDobbs]

@410Fortune I considered straightening it out, but just ordered another one from Superlift for like $80... pocket change. I'm gonna keep the other one for a spare, or use it for some other project if I need a piece of metal.

 

[DintDobbs]

She's back together and back in the game. Replacing the dropped crossmember without removing the upper bolts was interesting... when you don't have a helper or the proper tools, you come up with creative ways of getting stuff done.

Planning to take her out Saturday, and then start wheeling regularly again. A month without this truck was too long.

 

[DintDobbs]

Welp... took her out for a good break-in session with the new suspension parts up front, and broke the passenger front sway bar end link bolt, again, already. The previous one survived several years of abuse, the current one lasted one casual run.

I didn't push her hard at all. I might order an other end link kit, or I might just run with no front sway bar. I am inclined to suspect poor installation practices, since I didn't actually check over the end links after the garage installed them.

 

[97Sandbox]

Those end link bolts are really not that strong (they don't need to be, torque spec is low) if someone hit it with an impact because they were in a rush, it could have yielded pretty easily.

When I was living in Wisconsin and pulling rusty front end parts at salvage yards, it was always easier to remove that bolt by tightening till it snapped than it was to try to loosen the rusted-on nut lol.

Just curious, are the links or sway bar running at a sketchy angle due to the lift? Might need a different length for the links.

 

[DintDobbs]

@97Sandbox The lift instructions say to flip the sway bar upside down, which does put the end links at an odd angle. To judge by the bowl-shaped washers, it appears that the top washer came off and the sway bar came off the top without damaging the bolt. If the washer was ever installed on the passenger top. Don't know, didn't check. Washers that aren't made of silly putty might hold it on, but that won't solve the other problems...

I just finished removing the end links and found the passenger tie rod, a MOOG installed during the rebuild, bent. It can be straightened, but the fact that it made contact hard enough to bend tells me that there are other issues to rectify. This never happened with the old configuration either, despite years of hard abuse.

 

[97Sandbox]

Whoa! Yeah, I'm wondering now if you had a swaybar/tie rod collision. Might be time for extended links.

 

[DintDobbs]

@97Sandbox It appears that is what happened. Why, though, I do not know. My guess is that it probably smacked into the sway bar on compression when or after the end link separated.

These are Superlift's revised extended sway bar links; the design is the same (see post #21 for pics of the old setup just after installation), but the new ones are made of galvanized steel. I got some better quality washers, but if needed, I could add a small "spacer" to the sway bar mounts to improve the geometry. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it; for now, I'll be using it as-is. As long as no more washers get chewed up and spit out, it should be as fine as it was for the last three years.

Winter came early this year, and I don't like wheeling in the cold, so I'll take my time working it out if any other changes are needed!

 

[DintDobbs]

Well, I got all of that fun stuff dealt with, but after I took it out for another drive, noticed the front passenger brake response seemed to be abnormal. When I looked under there, I found that the bar pin connecting the front passenger strut to the lower control arm was snapped on one side, and the hardware was missing from the other side... so the shock absorber was just hanging free. No wonder the brakes felt funky.

Apparently this hardware went missing on or before the trip on which the passenger sway bar link came loose. My suspicion here is that somebody neglected to secure all of the hardware on the passenger side after replacing the lower control arms and before sending me off with the vehicle. When I looked at it before taking it home, I didn't notice any hardware missing, but how was I to know that I had to tighten it myself?

Also noticed a dent on the side of the front passenger strut, corresponding to the location of a bent hard brake line. Not sure of the order of these last few failures or the correlation between them, but it is my guess that the sway bar link broke first, the tie rod hit the loose sway bar on suspension cycle, and likely the absence of resistance from the disconnected sway bar allowed the control arm to move abnormally far, shaking the unsecured hardware loose; the strain from being secured on only one side probably broke the bar pin, and some time after that the loose shock absorber hit and bent the brake line during a hard turn (I actually heard some thing collide on the passenger side at full lock, one time and one time only).

If you want the job done right, do it yourself. If I had taken the risk with the torsion bar unloader, I could have identified issues before reassembly and perhaps prevented some of this stuff.

 

[Fix4Dirt]

If you want the job done right, do it yourself. If I had taken the risk with the torsion bar unloader, I could have identified issues before reassembly and perhaps prevented some of this stuff.

The Tbars are something that I messed with, and almost found out hahaha. Just do it safely and itll be fine. A bit scary but fine.