Charlie_Brown

Got spindle on drivers uca and installed everything. Was a bit of a PITA by myself this time using my leg to jack the LCA up while holding it in position For uca but got it done and the truck is back on 4 wheels again. Started it up, had my brother in law put it in 1st and reverse and let out the clutch to see if the motor would jump. Motor was solid on start up and both gears so motor mounts are still good and shouldn't be sagging from my knowledge. Not sure if there is another test I could try to be 100% sure but I'll have to Google more for that. Back to the idea of shimming the motor with a 1/4 steel or aluminum block. CL only hits going straight and hardly rubs but last thing i want is to rub a hole in the oilpan. I just find it so strange I'm the only one who has had this problem with 2wd steering conversion.

Vg30 oil pan and dented it to fit the crank. Considering the truck is 24 years old I'm thinking if I install new motor mounts it could allieve the situation as well since the old ones are most likely adding pretty good. Not sure how to check that though, guess it's time to search google

Got the centerlink on, hits oil pan for some reason so I'm considering shimming the motor to clear it. Put clear coat on uca spindle, hopefully by tomorrow night i can finish that up and install it to the drivers side, just have to remember to get up at 4am for another clear coat.

R50 month I guess lol

Spring can o my go on one way, it hooks into the wheel itself

Replaced drivers side upper and lower ball joints and greased bearings. Added more coats of paint to the spindle so after some clear coats it will be ready to go in and I can tie everything together again. Removed tie rods and centerlink from the truck to begin the 2wd steering conversion and immediately ran into issues with my truck being a vg33 swap and a massaged out oil pan that barely cleared the original centerlink. Bummer but oh well, still need to get the TREs drilled and tapped to fit

Greased the bearings on passenger side, wanted to grease the cv hub bearings but couldn't get it open from the front. Installed new control arm and both upper and lower ball joints and reinstalled everything. Took apart drivers side and got control arm out, bushings drilled and burned out, spindle primed and has first coat of paint. I need to get grease and a grease gun now. So many zerk fittings to do now. Kinda annoyed my top balljoint zerk fitting doesn't want to thread in but it should still work. Might put some teflon on it and see if that helps when I go to grease it all.

Installed idler arm brace, took off brake pad assembly after messing with frozed bolts and snapped my only Alan wrench socket I had of correct size turning out the seized bolts to the &^%*ing hub. Got all but two free. Last of clear coating on spindle done so control arm should be going on soon. Or in short I fought bolts till they broke my tools leaving me dead for the day.

Replaced upper balljoint on passenger side and clearcoated spindle. Seperated tie rod and began disassembly of the hub so I can torque the balljoint down.

Primed and painted the spindle so it can be nice and pretty hidden behind the tire lol. Pointless but whatever, looks good.

I recommend changing tensioner regardless just because I've heard talk on how an old tensioner can degrade the life of your new timing belt by 50 percent. Take that how you will but it's a cheap part so I just changed mine, plus I broke the stud while tightening it to spec anyways so had to wait around regardless. As for the tensioner spring you do not spun it full circle. The hole for the stud is offset so when you move the wheel you'll see it goes in towards the timing belt, likewise as you move the wheel you'll feel the tension build. I think the reason you need it is either to make sure the belt can't back the bolt off via vibration but I'm not sure. Don't forget to use your feeler gauge to put the belt tension on correctly

Monthly to keep fears properly lubed and ready to go. Too much sitting around is bad for the motor and gears

Drilled uca bushings more and torched them till the sou die was finally free. Sanded it down so I can paint it later and had my dad help me take the balljoint castle nut off by having him swing a sledge hammer against the wrench. Worked, it's off, now time to fight the ball joint off the truck.

Removed ice and shock. Fought the ball joints the the better portion of the hour I had and finally gave up trying to twist the nut and just install the control arm. Nobody talks about how &^%*ing hard it is to get the bushing off in order to get the spindle on the new control arm. Drilled for longer than I should have, didn't get it out and had to rush over to my buddy's house. Ordered new ball joints upper and lower also. Didn't get much done in that hour.

Hope you got a 2000 xterra engine so you don't have to mess around with alternator and power steering. If you do it's not hard just another thing. You can use vg30 distributor, you just have to swap the vg33 mounting plate. It is slightly different than the vg30. If you have manual trans don't even touch the trans, it doesn't help getting the engine out. Just drop the front diff, you can't get around it easily (I tried and succeeded but it was more of a PITA) Replace your water pump and timing chain now while it is out (you will regret it if you don't later on) The swap is tedious and at times a major pain in the ass but pretty straight forward and well documented between various forums. Will be nice to have a step by step like this with pictures with all the i formation in one single place for others. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

Replacing the crank?

My search would say otherwise lol.

That is good to know and very helpful. Thank you Red

I was under the impression that the plating is at a different angle as to support higher lift with the 3in lift super lift vs the 1.5-2 in rough country. Or am I wrong about this?

Superlift that are designed for a 3 inch lift since automotive customs as described on here do not correct balljoint angles and are pointless to me.

Alright so check it out, I bought my current arms wanting to lift the truck 2 inches. I ended up lifting my truck already 3 inches by t bars. Now I have control arms that are designed for a 2 inch lift MAX to correct balljoint angles so they do not wear as quickly as you know. Putting that on a 3 inch lifted truck I was curious if the ball joints would be fine since its just an inch and I have heard of other lifting 1-2 inches without any problems but in the end decided I would rather help my ball joints as much as possible and get the correct control arms that are designed for a 3 inch suspension lift. I understand you are trying to help and help me understand but what you are not getting is I'm not trying to go higher with control arms, I'm trying to save my balljoints and use the correct hardware for my now taller than I had originally planned.

Read the description of the add. The UCAs are for 1.5-2inch lift. Trust me I know UCAs don't add lift. Read my original question on this thread. I wanted to know if anyone had used UCAs for 2inch lift MAX on a 3 inch lifted truck or would the bjs still 've at a bad angle. Decided I'm not wanting to buy more bjs just because I'm cheap and would rather do it correctly. Yes I know RC are superlift, again I had already stated that in this very thread. Describing the brand was for the selling purposes so others know what they are getting.

Drilled two new holes in the bumper and threw paint on for added mounting spots and security, greased bolts for UCAs for swap when that gets here. Rinsed off the truck and shot inside the frame to get some of the mud out. Really just waiting on parts

If only I knew how to weld 😔 Yeah I am going with superlift, just wanted to make sure they were not like AC and do nothing for the ball joints since I had not been able to find anything like that about them before deciding

Sweet thanks! Much better than paying calimini and not knowing when you'll even get it