pulxar

I have a 3" lift with the factory lego rims and I have been running 32x1150s with no problem. Without the lift I think they would rub.

When I did the swap, I had a machine shop bore out the main crank pulley from a VG30 engine. I just grabbed one from the local junk yard. I took them both the crank pulley from the VG33 and the one from the VG30 and told them I wanted the VG30 pulley to match the hole in the one from the VG33. After that all of my accessories bolted right on, no changes needed. I've had no problems since. Here's a link to my write-up, hope it helps! vg33swap.pdf

So while I was working on the bolts for the tension rod, I pulled the spindle arm off and took a pic of the F I was talking about. On the other side (which they could align) it is forward and facing out, so I made the drivers side match. But you're right, there doesn't appear to be much difference between any of the sides. Here's the F I was referring to: Any ideas of if it has a meaning regarding orientation?

Same thing happened to me - I swapped the cluster and it fixed the issue.

I had something similar happen to me a while ago. What happened was the injector I replaced turned out to be a different style than the ones in the car (I also messed up the o-ring which just added to the headaches - so make sure you use a new one with the replacement injector, oh, I used a bit of light oil on the O ring to help it go in easily). The injectors have a blue or black dot on them, and you must match the color of the dot. I had to go to a junk yard and get one as the ones from Shucks/O'Reilly that said they were compatible did not work for me. Hope this helps.

OK, I just found a write-up that called them strut rod bushings and it answered my question about needing to unload everything... I'll give that a shot and see if it changes anything. Beauty of Schwab alignments is the 30 day warranty (and I wonder why the cringe when they see me coming).

The F is on one side of the spindle just outboard of one of the bolt holes (in my case its on the inside, behind the rear bolt, between the frame and the spindle, where you can't see it when it's bolted to the truck). I'd take a picture, but that'd involve taking the whole mess apart again. I looked at the compression rod bushing and it does have some small cracks in it but doesn't look nearly as bad as some I've seen searching around here. Looking at the Chilton manual, it appears you simply remove the rod with the truck sitting on the wheel to replace the bushing? Seems deceptively simple... Or do you need to lift the front end and unload the torsion bars, etc.? In which case might as well do the LCA bushings while it's apart - probably haven't been done in the life of the truck... Thanks Precise1 for all the pointers. It is much appreciated.

Yea, that's the one. I never thought about those other bushings, I'll check them out when I get off work this afternoon. I took a closer look at that spindle last night and it has an f on the back side of it (currently on the rear side). It looks pretty symmetrical me too, but... That f has me thinking that side should be forward?

I have been running the AC upper control arms for a long time now and my truck eats up ball joints like its cool. I also have had other front-end problems that I think may be related to problems inherent in those UCA's. So, in an attempt to alleviate these issues, I picked up some Rough Country UCA's to give me a better angle on the ball joint and hopefully end those issues once and for all. Everything is great with the new arms (especially the ball joint angle), however, they cannot get one side in alignment. It's close, but both the left caster and camber are slightly out of spec, and from what Schwab tells me, there is no more room to change things on that side. I'd not worry about it except that my truck now pulls to the left as a result and I'm sure it's going to kill my tires over time. I never had any alignment issues with the AC arms, so I'm thinking I may have screwed something up when I replaced 'em. My question is whether the bar that mounts the UCA to the frame could be incorrectly installed. I noticed that some writing on it is upside down, so I'm thinking maybe I put it in backwards. Do they have a specific direction that they need to be in order to line everything up? And if they do, is there a way to tell which way is correct?

Yes, it can. I had a broken exhaust stud that made a ticking sound.

Just a thought. I had a lot of trouble getting my alarm to work at all. When I tackled that project I ended up finding that some of the power wires that go to the module were not working properly. There is supposed to be a fusible link somewhere in the wire but I never found it. What I ended up doing was re-running the wires to get stand-by power and ignition-on power to the thing. There is a great diagram for the wiring someone posted a while ago. I'd suggest checking all of the power and ground wires and making sure that they actually are getting power when they are supposed to. There is a great diagram under How To in The Garage that has a wiring diagram that was invaluable in troubleshooting... Fix Your Keyless Entry!

Looks like that did the trick! Thanks everyone who chipped in with advice, as always it is greatly appreciated.

Well, the jury's still out in my opinion, but I coated all three rubber rings on the injector with 90 weight grease and it seated much better than it had previously. It literally snapped right in w/o having to use the cap to tighten it down. I have an uncle who races hydro's and he suggested the same thing as you Precise1, the 1/8 turn and be patient and gentle. I ran it for a while and it seems good. I shut it down and let it sit for about 10 minutes and it fired right up. I'll let it sit for a couple of hours now and assuming that works... So the lesson learned is to always use grease on O-rings to get them to seat properly...

Well, I'm back at it again this morning and think I may have found the issue. I looked at the wiring and tested things as per the FSM. No problems it claims. I also couldn't find a short anywhere. I went and grabbed half of an old fuel rail from a local junkyard last night just so I'd have another couple of 'blue' injectors to monkey with. When I pulled the injectors out of the junkyard rail they all looked and tested good - even the O-rings. I pulled my #1 out and it's brand new O-ring is tore into two pieces. Somehow when I'm installing the injector I am ripping the O-ring into two complete rings! When I installed the injector I put some motor oil on the rings and then set it in the rail. After that I used the cover to slowly (1 turn per side) tighten the injector until it seated and the screws were tight. Is there a better way to seat them? I think that is where I'm going wrong.

Thanks for the clarification! I have blue ones in the truck - and a black one from the shop - they claim it was black/blue compatible but I didn't chance it an got a blue one - same issue. It runs great one time until I park it then that cylinder won't fire, if the engine runs at all. So, I pulled the plug and the cylinder is full of gas... What am I missing here... I noticed on the injector I pulled out (which was brand new when I put it in, with new seals) that the smaller O ring was messed up. I have another new injector in there and I'm wondering if possibly I have some damage to the housing itself that is killing the O rings when I put the injector back in. I am trying to avoid taking the whole upper intake off the truck as it is only #1 that was bad... Is that a stupid idea?

I just did some digging around the forum and see that mentioned several times but nothing on what to look for. Where are the little dots at - I have the old injector and I can't find anything but a couple of part #'s on the side of the electrical plug. There is a spot, not really a dot, but more like a paint spatter on the top of the plug that is kinda bluish - Is that what you mean? I thought it was just dirt from being old.

OK, so I have had a problem that I've been fighting with for a while. I got a CEL with Code 51 that was very intermittent and unpredictable. After much digging around the forums I found a bad fuel injector on the #1 cylinder. It read something like 50 ohms while the rest were at 11.4. Long story short, I went to O'riely and bought a new injector and put it in this afternoon. Everything worked great for my test drive (about 10 minutes). I parked the truck and took a quick nap before my evening plans. When I went back out an hour or so later to go it was a pain to start and #1 is not firing at all unless I rev it above 2k RPM. There is a strong gas smell in the exhaust. Like the new injector is delivering WAY too much gas. I know it's that cylinder as I can unplug the spark plug and the missing doesn't change. Oh, and there is no code now, just 55 - system normal. I' about ready to put the old injector back in and see what that does. Any thoughts?

Washed it and tried to fix a random misfire/CEL...

Hmmm... That doesn't sound so bad... I may give that one a shot! Thanks guys! The other option that I'm toying with is to take the heads off the old VG30 and have them rebuilt then bolt them on to the 33 block in the truck... I'm not sure if this is a great idea or not, and it is more work than I am willing to do right now, but maybe this summer! I know that the coolant channels are a bit different between the heads, but I've heard that it works. I'd not hesitate if it was a dedicated off-road rig, but it's my primary vehicle and I take it on long drives all the time... I dunno, we'll see. As for pinning the writeup, if I need to do anything for you guys to pin it just let me know!

I actually have little to report and I drive it a lot. It still runs great, though I have noticed a bit of an issue with the clutch. It tends to slip more than the original one and overheats a bit easier. I also am starting to burn a bit of oil - my fault for not rebuilding the heads when I did the swap. I know it is the valve guide that's leaking so... I am prolly going to start a thread about the cam swap as I'd like to give that a go if I'm in that deep. That said, I'm not that knowledgeable about engines so I don't yet know what that takes to do - or how to fix the leaky valves for that matter. If I need to pull the heads then I'll just live with it for now. Thanks all for your words of encouragement! Please feel free to ask me if you want to know anything else, I'm happy to share what I can! Oh, and a milage update: I get about 19 on the freeway and 16 for a good mix. I avoid pure city driving at all costs...

The link should be back up. Sorry 'bout that... As for the cam swap, I still have the old VG30 lying around and would love to do that. Maybe someday when I have some more free time and money!

I bought basically the 4x4parts.com kit you posted in the beginning (the kit I chose also contained shocks and an idler-arm brace). It was fairly easy to install and I have had no issues with it - though the upper ball-joint angles are not great. I'd recommend replacing them while you have the front end taken apart - they're cheap and it'll save you doing it later. It was able to be properly aligned as well. Depending on what you have in there for shocks, I know that the stock ones I had before the lift were not long enough at full extension in the rear to support the new springs - didn't even bother checking the fronts. As another side note, I was able to run 32x1150's on the lego's with no other modifications after this lift (I'm using Maxxis BigHorn's). They do not rub even when turned to the stops.

I just did mine with the MT90 and it was fairly straight forward, except finding the MT90. Turned out that Shucks (now O'Reilly), can get it but they had to order it and it took a few days. As a tip, I ran the passenger side of the truck up on 8.5" blocks front and rear to get the required amount in the tyranny without having to mess with the shifter or anything. 12 quarts did both diff's, the x-fer case and the tranny to the revised spec with just a touch left over.

When I did the engine swap in my pathy I had similar problem. It'd work for a while then not, then come back to life and jump and... Turns out that it was the wire bundle brushing the exhaust manifold - and shorting things out. In my case it was because I didn't get it put back together properly, but after looking at it, the wire bundle could slip off the bracket and do the same thing. The bundle you are looking for should be on the rear of the block on the passenger side. The bracket is on one of the top bolts that hold the bell-housing to the block. Check to see if it has come loose and is rubbing something it shouldn't. You might also try cleaning the connector it goes to, that's on the fender well IIRC.