I machined them at work today, and tightened everything up, and reinstalled - wow what a difference!

mudhippy - your zerk location is freaking GENIUS! Out of the way and protected, but still easy to get the grease gun on. I did mine in the same place.

I called and talked to them, their customer service is pretty good, I didn't really push for a discount/refund or anything.

 

ok so you obviously trust your work. and i trust mine. so, are you gonna just roll with what you've got?

 

No kiddin' though huh?

I was like, "HEY NOW!". Crispy, extra-tight, high-performance sports car type steering response. Takes alot of that spongy wheel feel out of it don't it?

 

That doesn't work. When you bend them every weekend, they get pissed. I've had to drive to separate cities to get mine done at NAPA.

Plus it gets annoying.

This looks like a sweet product. You guys seem to just trash the bushings. I seem to bend the arms.

 

It's that good eh? I may have to take a look at these....

 

Well...maybe not as HUGE a difference as I'm making out possibly.

Honestly though, it didn't feel like I could possibly be driving my beat up, 20 old truck. I wasn't expecting anything to change with the steering quality I guess, but something did. And MUCH for the better in that aspect. I'd think I'd gotten my money's worth just with that beneficial result really. Cool thing is it should stay that way for awhile too!

 

I've never bent mine offroading in fell swoop. They've alwasy gradually deteriorated over long periods of time to the pt where the rubber dust cover between the arm and the housing is noticeablly smashed and the arm is bent up.

No problems yet exchanging mine.

I understand tho if you find this bend/bushing failure issue to be more frequent all this work might be well worth the effort but not for me.

Im not quite understanding how this would tighten the steering up any? All the slack in my steering is from the balljoints and the seemingly old PS box which they all wear overtime in the center (straight). I've never experienced any play in the idler arm or looseness. Even after the arm is well bent mine have all (even the stock one that was 18+ yrs old when i replaced it) felt tight...

someones gotta play devils advocate

 

I think they just hold the shaft in position better. So it's a little stiffer if you push up and down on the rod end. Not stiffer twisting the shaft in the hole.

(Oh boy, that's got "quote me" written all over it. )

 

i'll agree with that. the steering is noticeably better in my case (but still sucks lol)

 

OK. So if I'm counting correctly, thats 3 members of this board with the bushings and all three have had to machine or modify to make the part work. I think that is unacceptable. And they say "made to fit the vast majority." Hmm...
I like the idea and I'm glad you guys are happy with the results, but what are the bulk of the members that are not fabricators going to do? Most vendors here that had an 0 for 3 record would be getting some grief. Lets bring it to their attention and see if they can offer a solution.

 

Their solution is for you to send the idler arm to them, and they will machine them to fit and return the assembly for free.

 

That's good to hear. They are taking care of the customer and you will get a perfect fit. For the DD though, that is going to be a significant amount of downtime. Maybe the board can get someone doing an SAS to "donate" their old arm and it can be sent around from member to member to use on an interim basis. The "traveling idler arm."

 

it really wasn't that big of a deal to make them fit. on top of that, i'm 18 years old and dumb as **** according to my dad......so i by no means consider myself a "fabricator"

chad at custom machining did tell me as well that i could send him the arm, but it was much more worth it to spend a little time in the garage.

 

I hear ya loud and clear.

It's been bugging me a bit too. But, though I ain't sure exactly why they don't fit every idler arm, I do have some logical assumptions as to why.

First, it's a research and developement issue. Or, the lack there of. I can kind of understand why too. I mean this is a custom machinists product, custom meaning "one off"/"one of a kind" peices. His money is made buy "tailor fitting" parts to suit each customers particular project. Not by attempting to engineer parts that are necessarily for mass consumption, or parts that can/will work in all other applications. So how to fund the research could be tricky one would imagine.

Next, I've been to the guy's shop. It's NO big time production facility. This is just basically this guy and maybe his apprentice, if he has one. That's the business in it's entirety from what I could see. It's very basic, set up in just your standard one-car garage/shop behind the guy's house with a small sign slapped on the side of it. You could drive by it and never see it. Matter of fact I did just that.

And, for all I know this guy hasn't even made more than 4 pairs of them. He said he made some for his truck first, then the 3 of us. And I didn't even bother letting the guy know mine didn't fit, so much for my help.

All I'm sayin' is, what can you expect really? He's a real nice guy too. Pleasure to deal with, none the less.

 

ya i told him they didn't fit and he wanted me to send the bushings and the idler arm/housing to him. so i told him in an effort to save both of us shipping costs i'd just take care of it.

 

Subscribing to stay in touch with this rebuild.

 

OK. That explains alot. In my case I know Steve Schaefer of Sonoran Steel and in some cases he just can't make some projects worth doing because of low demand or too much time involved or too many individual vehicle variations. And sometimes people don't understand that. We should probably just take this guy's bushings while they are still available and be happy. Maybe as I posted earlier we should just get an idler arm rotation going ( I pick one up in a yard, send it in for bushings, get it back and install, send my old one in with your return addy on it, get it rebuilt and sent to you, install, old one sent in etc. etc.)

What exactly did you guys have to do? What tools needed etc. I know how MudHippy did it.

 

i basically had to widen the ID by only a few 100ths so that was done on the drill press with an attachment for a dremmel that coincidentally was the right size. and then the outside needed to be thinned by about 15/100 of an inch so i took a file to it with it spinning on a laith and did a lot of trial and go back at it.

it took me about 2 hours of CAREFUL work until i got them the way i wanted it to fit. i know it could have been done more professionally, but time and money are two things that i didn't have at the time.

i hope that helps. if TC has the dimensions (which i think Chad now has.....) then maybe whoever orders the parts can just specify the "custom" dimensions. like mudhippy said: chad is a very nice guy.

 

Might I offer another solution... other then forming Blknblu's "Brotherhood of the Travelling Idler Arm" option (lol)... invest in a Caliper (available at most any hardware or auto shop) and remove your idler arm, measure it (top and bottom) and give the measurements to Chad with your order... This is what I'll be doing just to be sure...
As for all the differences people are facing I think it may have a lot to do with different wear patterns on the idler arms themselves...

Hippy what did you use for the spacer on the bottom? I see in the picture the dark gray plastic looking thingy...

We all need to support the small artisan/craftsmen shops, they are where most of the really great innovations and esoteric stuff comes from...

 

Sweet!!! An excuse to buy a tool! Why didn't I think of that?!?