Mr. Pickles

Sorry, front driver's side. Its still there, not broken off. Its just stripped all to hell.

Cool, much appreciated. I'm in no real hurry, just want to get rid of the annoyance eventually.

I have a shake as well, as in the steering wheel shaking side to side. Pretty annoying really. I guess it wasn't as noticable before because the alignment was off and it was pulling to the right. As for checking the ball joints, what would one be looking for. General looseness? I'm just wondering if I'd be better off taking it in and getting shafted in more bills.

I just finally got my alignment straight after the 4th try in the last 2 months. Les Schwab did it but stipped one of the bolts on the driver's side control arm trying to put in shims. They tried to pass it off, so I got about 2 miles down the road and it blew apart. Got that fixed, then re-aligned (Les Schwab denied ANY responsibility! They said it must have BEEN LIKE THAT WHEN I DROVE IT IN!!!). Then was in a wreck a few days later in a rain storm, when a guy went road rage and slammed his brakes in Taurus, and I slid into him. Even the cops said it was obvious he did it intentionally. Wasted his Taurus, it crumpled up like a beer can. Got it fixed and re-aligned at Firestone, but it was off since they didn't do a complete job. Now on the 4th try, it tracks perfectly straight. Whew, I'm winded with all that. Ok. Now, since it isn't pulling to the side, I'm noticing more than ever that things seem to be getting tired in the front end. I have about an inch of play side to side in the steering wheel while driving, and it likes to wander a bit. The mudders don't help, of course. Could this be bushings, etc. or worn out parts? I've never really played with front suspension much, but if there is something I could tackle myself to eliminate this annoyance, I'm there. The wallet is getting a bit light lately from all the trips to the shop.

Found another screw-up by the morons at the local Les Schwab. Tell your friends! Avoid them at all costs! They stripped a wheel stud, so the lug nut just fell off. Nice. This is the 2nd one to go away, the first I paid to have replaced. How would one go about this, the local shop wants *gasp!* $80.

I've already had to trim the flares and a bit of the fender and remove the ends of the front airdam thing, and I'm only running 31 BFG MT's. There are worse things in life...

That can also solve some electrical mysteries. Had an old GM car, and nobody- NOBODY- me, mechanics, dad who was an electician, could find where a mysterious current draw was coming from. It would drive around fine, then die overnight. New battery, alternator, hours of testing. Finally, I just installed a battery cutt of switch and killed the juice every night. That would be Yankee enginuity. Or redneck auto repair...

I just did it. If we all speak up about this kind of thing to all manufacturers whenever we have the chance, maybe we can convince the aftermarket to start making more parts for our rigs.

Its extremely easy to just bypass the factory amps. 2 reasons for this: 1) Most aftermarket decks today can blow the old factory amps away in quality and power. 2) It eliminates any "guess work" and risk of damage to your speakers from the distortion that could be caused by running amplified signal from your new deck through another amp, then to your speakers. Use an aftermarket wiring harness, and just skip the connection of the speaker outputs from the deck to the harness. If you're not using an aftermarket amp, just run new wire from there to the speakers. The doors are easy, just note the coloring of the wiring at the back of the speaker, then you can tap into the wire from the harness behind the kick panel, just before it enters the door. If you're running an aftermarket amp for your front speakers as well, its that much easier. Its easiest to mount the amps in back. You just run your power from battery and remote down one side of your truck (ground from the amp directly to the truck chassis as close as possible), and your RCA cord(s) and 2 speaker wires (for the front speakers) down the other side. The rear speakers are super easy to reach and run new wiring directly from the amps as all the panels and trim use either just a few screws or just snap in back there. Its highly recommended that, if you're going to be driving the system very hard at all, and especially with subs, use at least crossovers built into your amp, install passive (really cheap!) or active crossovers (a bit spendy) to avoid blowing your speakers (and tweets if you have them).

Jim, 12-15 mpg? And here I was thinking about moving up (?) to 33's at the next tire swap. I'm getting an average of 17 mpg on 31X10.5's mostly stop and go and commuting driving, up to the low 20's on highway road trips. Obviously lower off road and pulling and such. Does anyone else experience this? If so, looks like I'll be going wider for now and not taller, in lieu of a bigger motor or rig. On another note, check out my post on the Garage area.

Just turned 26 on Sunday the 7th, going on 15 at heart.