Well, after yet another Saturday, and part of a Sunday we are complete and finished. Lets start at the beginning- or rather the rears.
I finished up the fronts last Saturday, but realized the drivers Swaybar link threads were all buggered. Not good. So I got it back together enough that it would hold, put a tire on it, and decided I would go back to it to finish after I got the rears done. Jacked up that a$$ end and got her in jack stands. Took tires off and sprayed everything down with a liberal coating of PB blaster. I did this twice more before....
This Saturday, when I planned to try to rear spacers. The directions for the rears- loosen the control arm bolts, take off the tie rod end, and take out the lower strut bolt. Seems simple. And it WAS! I was able to get them off easily, and back on with out any major issues. By myself to boot. I did have to manhandle the whole assembly to re-insert the lower strut bolt. It took a long pipe, a foot to push in, and a long arm to insert the bolt. As a side note- do not hammer this bolt back in- you WILL bugger the threads. I did this the first time, but realized it before the point of no return. Took the bolt off and was able to fix the damaged threads with a small triangle file. The second time, I made sure that the bolt went in easily, which is not an easy task by yourself. In any case, I was able to get everything back together with out and major issues. Great- now I just have to get back to that sway bar linkage.
That't the hard one- the inner strut mounting nut on top- if you have big hands good luck getting in there.....
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These are easy...
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Just some other work photos of the rear....
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Also- those little blue Ford symbols ARE center caps!
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Located an Advance Auto that had Moog sway bar ends, and picked them up. Went back to the truck Saturday afternoon. Swapped jack stands, front tire off, and got the new link in on that side. It was a task- and needed to be cut off. The lower ball joint is through the lower control arm- which has a recessed hole for the nut. This means no way you can get a 10mm on that stud as well as turn the lock nut off. I was prepared and used a angle grinder and cutoff wheel to cut the sway linkage off the ball joint. Then put a pipe wrench on the little ball from the ball joint and turned out the nut easily. The install on the new linkage was very straight forward, and the new ones have a spot for an 18mm wrench to hold instead of that ridiculous 10mm stud. Pause here till Sunday.
Sunday I went back over to do the passenger sway link- figured I should replace in pairs. Anyway, this one was the same process as the first. Everything went well - no major issues, except I hit my knuckle with the dang grinder. Had it in my right hand as I sat up from laying under truck, and guess my left hand was in the way. Lucky it was already off, and just spinning as I sat up or it would have been much worse.
Now its Monday morning- and the truck is in the shop getting an alignment. It was pretty wonky when driving over to the shop- felt like it was falling left or right trying to steer. Hopefully this is a result of the alignment being off, rather then something I missed in the install. Waiting to hear from the shop to see how bad I f-ed things up with my front end.
That folks is where I am at with this saga. All for a slightly better looking stance..... haha
Seriously though, the truck looks awesome with the 295/70r18 tires.
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