shift220

Yea that's why I asked if he had manual hubs, I don't and thought maybe the CVs or front DS had something to do with it. Do you have the numbers on the alignment? This random thing almost seems like a steering instability. Mine are.. (L/R) Front Caster: 3.5/3.6 Camber: 0.3/0.1 Toe: 0.05/0.05 Rear Camber: 0.1/-0.4 Toe: 0.0/0.35 Thrust Angle: -0.2

Is this like a steering wheel shimmy? If so, I'm experiencing the exact same problem... 1) Do you have manual hubs? 2) Possibly worn front control arms? 3) Does your steering rack move around at all when steering? 4) How is your rear axle alignment? 5) How much play in the rear link arms? 6) How sure are you about no play in the ball joints? I wish I could find mine, at least I know it was after my lift.

Thanks guys! I'm very happy how it turned out. I wish I could powder coat the whole truck

So after doing the SFD I was left without a front skid plate. The stock one was pretty useless anyway and so I looked to Fleurys 1/4" aluminum plate. He had no problem doing a SFD version and had it to me very quickly. Man this thing is beefy! And the great thing is that it's a lot lighter then any steel plate. The recessed bolt holes and stainless steel hardware work very well together! After some initial mockup, I powder coated the plate my favorite super durable gloss black and mounted it up! Looks incredible compared to have no plate and should offer some better gas mileage with better aerodynamics. Here is the link to his thread

Alright so I thought I would need a small spacer and a longer bolt but it turns out to get it tight enough you need bolt it down like stock. First I loosened and removed the steering linkage off the steering rack. This had to be shortened after rotating the rack anyway. I then took off the driver side bracket and loosened the passenger one to rotate the rack. I just wiggled it upwards how far it would go without really pushing it. Checked the linkage and it was nearly straight. Perfect. Then I did the wire trick and figured out that each ear on the bracket just needed to be angled more. You can see in the picture about how much. I just cranked the bracket in the vise and took a few good wacks at it. The white is the modified bracket. It needed to be bent roughly 10 degrees so the picture can be printed out and will help if you need it (check it on the vehicle too). What I did was hold it tight on the top bolt and make sure the square part hugged the bushing well. You'll notice that the bottom part is about 20mm above the stock mounting hole. This is where I figured I needed a spacer and a longer bolt but it turns out cranking down the stock one worked perfect and held it tight. Of course I forgot to take pictures of it but if I did now you wouldn't noticed much of a change except the rack pointing up more.

...I found a great way to rotate the steering rack using the stock bracket and a hammer. Thanks for the tip on using wire to get the shape! No cutting, grinding or welding required either

Steeevo can you comment on the reliability of these joints? I know similar joints that are open to the elements wear out very quickly when used on the street. I can only imagine the effect after going offroad through mud and sand. Are johnny joints better for this?

I figured it was bolt on since its a body on frame. Does it get welded to the inner fenders and stuff? I guess that would make it a lot tougher to pull from the junkyard too.. You might want to pick up some body working tools to help out. Its nice when you have different sizes and shapes to pick from.

I would stick with a single cooler to minimize the amount of connections and things to go wrong. If you want the best of both worlds, go with a smaller cooler with a dedicated fan mounted on it. Then it doesn't cool as much in the winter and in the summer you have plenty of cooling power at any speed. Does the stock cooler exchange heat with the radiator? If so, you should run them in series, cooler -> exchanger, and you should have your fluid at a good temp in all weather conditions. Maintenance will stop your stock cooler from clogging. Otherwise, put cardboard in front of your new cooler when the temperature drops.

Depends how much damage is done. On my Sonoma, the core support was bent in and the metal was actually stretched. I tried my best to straighten it out but it didn't get very close. I ended up replacing the whole support and very glad I did. It's not to bad of a job.

Looks absolutely great man. Do a little grinding to get that 2" x 4" tube up in the panhard bar slot? Definitely a lot easier to make then mine. Any pics of the steering rack? I'd like to rotate mine as well.

Holy smokes man, good thing you weren't going any faster. That looks like some nasty carnage. Good thing they're covering the damage.

External cooler is used for extra cooling power for your transmission fluid. You don't necessarily need one but it will help under extreme conditions. To install it, most units will come with directions (and most needed parts). It's fairly simple and just requires rerouting some stock lines. The new cooler can be mounted in front of the stock rad to make things easy.

While that's true, the air also flows with less restriction, making it easier for the engine to pull in air to the cylinders. So air velocity doesn't necessarily slow down until you reach some other restriction (intake, exhaust, cam, etc). This is one thing I didn't see him address on his website but I only took a quick look. Either way, I say go for it there's always stuff to port and polish out on high-production manifolds

*SOLD* Not much to say about how it came about but basically someone asked me to make this kit and fell through when it came time to pay up. Seems ironic. This is a 3.5" subframe drop kit Included: - Subframe and engine blocks - Steering extension - Strut Spacers - Panhard Drop bracket - Extended rear brake line - All required Grade 8 hardware Everything is labeled and powder coated black. It's packaged up and ready to go. Some notes about the SFD kit: It can be combined with any spring lift in the front, so you can go from 3.5" with the kit plus 2" lift spring for 5.5" total lift. It doesn't include anything to lift the back (springs, spacers etc.). PM me if your seriously interested and i'll send you back a price with shipping.

So the shimmy came back the next day after the wheel bearing and has been just horrible. I just replace the steering rack bushing and it really calmed it down. Unfortunately I don't think that was the cause of it as its still there. I still don't think it could be a wheel imbalance (even dynamic) because its just not consistent enough. I'm driving at 80 kph along a road and the first half is smooth and then half a km later its shimming like crazy. I'm going to play with the tire pressures next and perhaps try the stock wheels.

Well considering some bolts are 19 and 22 mm I would get sockets up to that size. A good 1/2" breaker bar is a really good thing to have as well.

If you have it up in the air already just rotate a wheel 360 degrees and count the number of times that the driveshaft rotates (front is probably easiest). # driveshaft rotations / # wheel rotations = gear ratio

My factory tie-down points were held in by 3 bolts on each side (all the same size). I made my own bolt-on hitch but ended up stripping like 3 bolts so it became a weld-on hitch. 3 bolts that size per side seems to be standard for class 3 hitches. With a unibody, you want more to spread the load over the thinner metal box.

Yea your going to spend quite a bit to fix any kind of rust like that. Anything less then a grand and your either getting a huge deal or a crappy job. How to prevent it? Like someone else already mentioned, cleaning under the flares often enough. You can also get a rust proofing spray and maybe even some of that clear 3m film and put it between the paint and flares. Otherwise sell the rig before it comes through

No worries B! I was playing with the idea already. I'll see how the new bushing tightens up the steering rack. With the bigger tires, it throws the steering wheel around quite a bit now. It would be pretty cool to figure out a way to mount one up. Anyone else feel the same way with their R50s?

On my R50?

Well the stock bearings still looked pretty good. A little worn and definitely could have been repacked. I replaced them anyway and now everything is tight! It calmed down the shimmy a lot and I think the rest is coming from the classic steering rack bushing. By the way, if you are working on the bearings then do a favour for yourself and get the locknut tool. I ended up making my own out of some pipe and a grinder (really simple). I used a punch before and there's no way you can get it tight enough to set the bearings. The front wheel still had play after using only a punch. Unccpathfinder, do you have a steering stabilizer? I wish I could bolt one up!

Thanks for the insight. I'm going to go ahead and replace the front wheel bearings. I'll post up my findings.

So i'm having trouble diagnosing this steering wheel shimmy. It seems to occur whenever it wants but mostly at around 80 kph. I say its random because sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. Today I was going around a curve doing about 70 kph and as the road turned straight again, the shimmy disappeared. I've replaced the strut mounts, struts are brand new, steering rack bushing shows no play, ball joints are good, bushings in controls arms are solid, no visible play in the inner or outer tie rods, fresh alignment, wheel balance was also fresh and I went as far as adding balancing beads. It's been off and on bad but today seems the worst. It shimmys back and forth violently about 1/2". Two possibilities I can think of: wheel bearings and alignment of rim on the hub. I got the front wheels off the ground and there seems to be an unusual amount of axial play in the wheel. I'm pretty sure the bearings are gone. What is weird is that before I put on the lift and 32" tires, it drove perfectly smooth. So my two questions are: has anyone had their wheel bearings go out on them (~72000 miles only) at an early age? and secondly, anyone with aftermarket rims, have you have vibration problems or had to use hub-centric spacers? FOUND THE PROBLEM Well hopefully I did! I removed the front driveshaft and checked the u-joints. Absolutely no play in the joints but when rotated there is noticeable bind in one of them. I went for a spin without the driveshaft and the steering wheel shimmy seems to have disappeared. This might just explain the vibration in 4x4 as well. Explaination for occuring only after the SFD? I would guess that the increase in angle exposed the u-joints to rotate further then stock and out of the "evenly worn" parts of them. After seeing fleurys thread, i'm going to try and locate some of these u-joints and see if my problem disappears for good. By the way, I don't have locking hubs so those of you with selectable hubs may not experience this same problem (unless in 4x4 of course).