Skyjacker woes....

[DanB]

SkyJacker Woes

I also did the longer bolt/spacers/washer thing for about three years, but they kept losing up because of the longer lever arm and ovaled the hole in the bushings. That's when I drilled them out and made some bushings that were an inch longer and a press fit in the hole. They I lined the bushing up with the angle of the bottom of the shock and welded them in. Two years and no loosening or bumping on the shocks.

 

[410Fortune]

You know Limited, from your pictures I just noticed that you are MISSING the nylon spacer behind each radius arm.....this will push the arm forwards a little....

 

[Limited Ex]

have a pic of what it looks like? I will go out and rummage through the box and see what I can find...

 

[Limited Ex]

Thought I would dig this old thing up

Update as of today. I have been working these past few days on fixing the passenger side axle bracket, because I noticed a few weeks ago that one of the mounting tabs was broke in half. So I ordered a new drop bracket and they sent me revised bracket, much much nicer So I figured while I had my front end apart, I would take a whack at those radius arms. Man what a whack...It seems that the guys who installed them before were not entirely off base. Even these past few days I had to drill a couple more holes so I could get all the bolts in. One hole I drilled was through a section of reinforced frame, and I need a longer bolt. There are not enough threads to meet the nyloc portion of the nut I had to grind a tad bit off the drivers side axle because there was a contact point on the front of the radius arm that was preventing the bottom bolt on the axle from lining up with the hole. One thing I noticed is that when I installed the new trans crossmember, it lifted my transmission a good bit. Maybe 1", maybe more. I just know it is higher now than it was previously. No pics as of yet, but I will get some tomorrow. And I would be driving it tonight, but when I seprated my tie rod at the beginning of the operation, I managed to screw the threads up and could not get the nut back on :fire: So tomorrow I am either buying a new end, or get my buddys thread repair kit. Either way, tomorrow is when she's back on the road

 

[nissanboy]

damn... im glad i dont have TTB suspension. Torsion bars are so much harder to frig up.

Good luck getting it back on the road.

 

[Limited Ex]

Got her running tonight, did not get any pics because it was dark when I got done. It took longer to finish up than I thought. My buddies thread repair kit is supreme, but none of them were big enough for the threads. So it took some time getting the tie rod back together. And the shock mounts, wow I had heard about contact issues with the radius arms, but sitting still my shocks would have been rubbing the ****e out of the radius arms. So I slid an extra nut between the shock and the radius arm and it looks like it will work. If I can get the Bilstein 5150s I have been looking at, then rubbing issues will go away since there would be no shock body near the arm. Tomorrow I will have pics, and I will also be getting an alignment. I ended up having to remove the tie rod end during its repair, and I think I threw the toe-in off just a tad I am also hoping thats the only alignment problem I have. Oh and I am going to have to do a little trimming, because now at full turn I am relatively close to the fender, and I can imagine what that would do to my tires when flexing :thumbdwn:

 

[XplorerKid]

Damn Caleb, Seems like the X has been giving you soem problems

Good yo see you got them fixed, now um Post some pics! and Go Wheeling :roll:

 

[Limited Ex]

now um Post some pics! and Go Wheeling :roll:

Thanks Caleb
Pics will be tomorrow, and wheeling will be this weekend

 

[Limited Ex]

Alright, here are some pics. I got my alignment today, and everything is cool now. If I had thought about it at the time, I would have gotten some before pics of the alignment because....it was bad. The toe was off to such a degree, that it actually made me slow down when coasting downhill Anyhow......

Here you can see how close the shock is to the radius arm

Another shot

This is where I had to grind the axle a little because of a little rubbing from the radius arm

A little out of focus, but this is the bottom front bolt (the one that sits above the radius arm itself) of the drivers side bracket. The nut is right up against the frame..

This is the drivers side bracket, and that bolt goes on the side of the frame, and is the top one. I bought a longer one today because as you can see, that one does not even reach the nyloc part of the nut.

The previously described bolt is the one in this picture without the washer. Just showing the extra set of holes I have. The passenger side is identical. The stock holes were not used at all....

So I do not know how Skyjacker wrote their instructions, but there was no way I could have done the install following their steps. But let me clarify, I am quite happy with the way it turned out, but it certainly was not as easy as the instructions would lead one to believe!

 

[410Fortune]

hahaha it never is man. They usually test fit one kit on a ranger and call it good for all Explorer's and BII's and rangers.

Boy that looks familiar! hahaha

Oh now go scrape up those arms on the bottom like mine.

 

[Limited Ex]

Oh now go scrape up those arms on the bottom like mine.

I will work on that this weekend And from the looks in some areas on the arms, you'd think they had already been used; after being installed, uninstalled, sitting in my garage for about 2 years, then getting installed again, the powdercoating is not exactly mint

 

[raiper]

how much does a 6 inch kit for the front cost?

 

[jrgaylor]

How does your axle look in the pivot bracket?
here is a pic for a example

 

[Limited Ex]

Raiper, considering you can no longer buy the 6" lift as a kit, it is kind of hard to say. I am almost positive though you could buy it piece by piece becuase I had to buy a new pass. side axle bracket, and I would imagine you can get the 6" coils still also.

Jr, mine did look like that, but while I was in there replacing brackets, I also replaced the pivot bushings, so its looking a bit better now I will get a pic of it tomorrow. And are you running a 4" lift?

 

[jrgaylor]

Suppose to be 6" skyjacker with f-150 spacers, I am using the top hole on the drop brackets and I have extended radius arms designed for a 2 1/2" lift. I have new heim joint radius arms ordered should be here wednesday I hope