jj big shoe

For me a badass truck isn't about the lift, it's all about the suspension...

I've got a lot more than 100 posts, but only a couple of mine are actually worth reading...this ain't one of them.

They don't sell liquor in some parts of OBX so be sure to bring your own if you're so inclined. All I could order in a restaurant was beer, wine and bastardized wine-based mixed drinks. Ever try a seven & seven made from grapes? I do not recommend it. Awful Arthur's is a pretty good raw bar and depending on which route you take, you'll pass right by the Gravedigger home base in Kill Devel Hills if you're interested in that sort of thing.

I think they're trying to go off spec and since it's lifted their alignment numbers will be off. I went to a dealership near Tampa and they wouldn't even touch it since it was lifted. Find a real tech that has the time and they'll square it up. Otherwise, start doing it yourself.

Not at all. A body lift has no affect on your suspension or steering geometry whatsoever and a suspension lift won't directly affect it either. It's affected once you start adding shims to get the camber correct after a suspension lift. I Googled "driveway alignment", "hot to set camber", and stuff like that for the info. Here's a link to another post where I went over how I did my own front end alignment. It's probably not exactly dead-on, but it's a lot closer than any of the three shops I've been to that charged me $100+.

These trucks are notoriously difficult to align. You have to add shims behind the UCA spindle for caster and camber adjustments and most shops either don't know how to do it properly or give you some BS like it'll never be able to be aligned if you raise the ride height (crank the t-bars). Plus if you have lift springs in the rear and no panhard drop bracket the rear axle will be off center and I'm not sure if that affects the measurements taken by the alignment machines. That's why I read up on it and did my own in my garage(so far so good). Since you have the lifetime alignment deal, I'd call other Firestone shops and see if they have an old school tech that knows what he's doing or possibly a newbie tech that wants to learn. Either way, expect it to take a while longer than most alignments.

Oh yeah, if you installed lift springs in the rear and don't have a panhard bar drop bracket that won't work. You're rear axle is actually off-center.

You won't be able to do a metallic paint with a roller. The metallic flakes need to be sprayed or else it'll look clumpy in spots and bare in others. And I would guess it would look like it has stripes of you tried with rattle cans unless you has correct "gun control" and overlapped each pass properly at the same speed. Plus spray cans tend to "spit" when they're getting low which will put more metallic bits in one spot. If you were to try it, you might want to practice on a scrap hood or some other large flat metal. And practice with the hood standing up and laying flat since you'll be spraying in both planes on the truck. Hmm...don't they make a sparkley clear spray paint? I don't know why but somehow that seems easier to do evenly. Maybe a metallic clear over the smoke base would be the way to go. Make sure the base and clear are compatible, though. Good luck.

As long as the alignment guy knows what he's doing, no prob. But I've been to three shops and none have done it correctly, so I did mine myself. First thing is to get your ride height even. Measure the height from the ground to the center of the bolt that holds your lower control arm to the frame (call that "A"). Then measure from the ground to the top or bottom of the steering stop or some other spot that's consistent on each LCA (call that "B"). A-B= ride height. Once the ride height is dead equal on both LCAs, take a level to your rims. I used a straight square bar and cut it so it would sit flat against the outer lip of the rim and not touch the tire then stuck a level on the bar. You want the wheels to be almost perpindicular to the ground with just a touch of neg camber (leaning in). I'm talking just a hair, a blonde one. You achieve this by putting shims behind the UCA spindle. Now, let's say you slap your level on the rim and it's off. Then you move the top of the level out, say 1/8", and the bubble centers you'd naturally figure you would need a 1/8" shim behind the spindle. Not true. The shim thickness at the spindle is disproportionate from the measured distance the rim moves. Simply said, it'll be way too much shim. A thin shim will push the top of the rim out much further than the thickness of that shim. I don't have a formula or anything, just a load of trial and error over a couple very hot days. I made sure to put an equally thick shim behind each UCA bolt when making the adjustments. That way (I think) I wouldn't affect caster too much. Seemed to work, it rides and stops OK. When you add shims, just bouncing the front end to "settle" the suspension won't work, believe me. I had everything measured to a tee, then almost lost it going over some train tracks. When I got back, I took a look and the wheels were at such positive camber it looked like a VW bug with no engine. What I did to "settle" the suspension was back out of the garage and pop the clutch up the driveway to hop the front end. I would do that a few times after each adjustment. Works well. Toe-in was OK so I didn't adjust it, but here's how I checked: Put the front on jackstands under the LCAs. You want the weight of the truck to be sitting as if it were on it's wheels. Find a common mark on each tire. I used the rubber seam left from the mold that runs down the center of the tread (BFG A/T's). Then I stuck a screw in the lug at the seam, spun the tire so the screw was at 15" from the ground and measured from one tire to the other at the front of the truck. Now spin the tire 180 degrees and measure underneath the truck between the screws again, keeping the screws at 15" above the ground. The front measurement should be 1/32" to 1/16" shorter than the rear. If not, you'll have to adjust your tie-rods. Now my standard disclaimer: I am in no way a trained auto mechanic, technician or guru. If you follow this advice you're on your own as it is intended for entertainment purposes only. The author of the above post smoked a lot of pot in high school and retained nothing.

Could it be rusted inside? Bring some penetrating oil.

Nope, not with a timing light. The light flashes when the #1 spark plug fires, which should be when the correct mark (12 to 15 degrees or so for our trucks) on the crank pulley is lined up with the pointer on the timing cover. If the pulley is in the wrong position, the light will still fire at the same time but you wouldn't have the correct reference point on the pulley to go by. The harmonic balancer is keyed to the crank therefore it can't be installed in the wrong position but it seems a lot of the early WD21s had a seperate pulley that bolted onto the balancer so it's easy to mount it wrong. Newer engines have the balancer and pulley as one piece or the timing marks are on the balancer instead of the pulley.

First off, I think you're asking alot of a Dremmel. Have you tried doubling the disks, stacking two on the shaft?

If the crank damper on your 89 is like the one on my 87, there are six bolts holding the pulley to the damper. If so, it's easy to mount the pulley wrong if they were separated during the build. Either that or you have the timing light hooked to the wrong plug?

Previous owner was prolly a backyard engineer and figured the airbox was too restrictive. I found the same thing on my Jetta. The fool drilled holes that totally bypassed the filter. I duct taped them shut and it didn't affect my lap times to the grocery store and back whatsoever.

Yup, that screw adjusts the idle when the A/C is on. The FSM doesn't mention anything about it adjusting the idle mixture. That'll be controlled thru the ECM based on sensor inputs. Have you checked your vac hoses yet?

Yeah, just tuck it up in the hose. It won't restrict the flow or anything and it's more accurate and less prone to damage that way rather than mounting it between the rad fins.

I slid the temp probe into the upper hose at the radiator. Trouble is, the probe lead will cause a slight gap between the radiator inlet and the hose and the coolant will weep a bit. If you wrap a few layers of electrical tape around the radiator inlet it will create a place for the probe wire to press in once you clamp the hose and seal everything up.

Yeah. Common ground, low wire and high wire. Like I said, I only have the low hooked up but I think you'd have to cut power to one before switching on the other, not have both leads hot at the same time. And low speed is plenty, but the way this thing flows air you might actually get better MPG on high since it'll act like a propellor on a P-51 Mustang and pull you down the road.

The Taurus fan is a dual-speed unit with nine fan blades. I have one which is only hooked up to the low speed side and it'll keep everything cool while wheeling in low gear, in August, in central Florida with the A/C on. Here's the link to OEM Surplus, J.R. They've got some pretty decent prices on the stuff they have.

I had a similar situation where there was a horribly annoying noise coming from the passenger seat. I got divorced and it went away.

When I swapped a FWD auto engine into my 5-speed 4x4, I set each on its own engine stand then just swapped parts until the new one looked like the old one.

If you're sure he didn't swap the entire axle then nevermind. If there's a chance he did swap it and you have different gearing in the front axle than you have in the rear, that would be a problem. Just checking.

You made sure both your original axle and the one the guy installed have the same gear ratio, right? Just checking.

Just count the teeth between the alignment marks on the rear cover. There should be 40 between the cam marks and 43 between the driver's (left) cam mark and the crank mark notch.

I can't tell you exactly why, but I don't think that would be a good idea. The refrigerant acts as a lubricant/coolant for the compressor, you might blow out the seals, there is a vacuum involved so pushing compressed air in the system would be the exact opposite of how its supposed to operate, the compressor prolly won't switch on since there's an internal pressure switch to prevent it fron operating when theres low refrigerant...