I'm upgrading my steering stabilizer, shocks and add-a-leaf to Rancho. I need help with three problems:

1. I can't remove the front eye bolt on the right rear spring. It turns with the rubber mount and won't release. Can I saw the sucker off? Or what should I do?

2. Should I replace the rubber shims in the spring eyes anyway? Would you use polyurethane? I called the dealer and they want $32. for the bolt, nut and rubber shim.

3. When I was torqueing on the shackle bolts, the rear axle rotated and the drive shaft fell out of the front U-joint. I was able to get the splines together and slide them mostly together. Any precautions I should take with reassembly?

Now, it's 4:30 on Saturday nite and Central Off Road is closed until Monday. Any suppliers open late, or on Sunday?

Thanks for your help, Mark

 

Mark, try Les Schwab tires. They may be open until 5 or 6 tonight if you need parts.
Corey

 

Make sure you have the splines put together so the u-joints are in phase.

This means that the cross of the u-joint at each end of the solid shaft should be parallel to each other. As an example, if you had the shaft laying on the floor with the cross of the u-joint vertical, the opposite end should also be vertical. If not, the shaft was rotated to some degree before it was reassembled. Slide it back off and rotate it to be back in phase. Vibrations and bad u-joint wear can result if not in phase.

I'm going to see if I can find a pic if this explanation is not understandable.


this link has an example of phasing near the bottom of the page

http://jniolon.clubfte.com/drivelinephasing.html

David

 

David,
Thanks for the excellent advice. I just felt fortunate I got it back together, hadn't even thought about aligning the ujoints. Mark

 

Yeah, its easy to miss the right spline. My son's 85 PU has an odd number of splines, so there is only 1 way it lines up perfect.

 

David,
After getting all the shocks and add a leafs in place, we eyeballed the ujoints and saw they were about 20 degrees off. We lined them up and everything slipped into place. On my '87, there are at least a couple of ways that the splines will go together. Thanks for the tips. Mark

 

SOOOOOO????
How does it look? Get some pictures bud

 

Todd,
I got quite a lift at all corners- I was actually surprized how much it was and glad it wasn't any higher. Chief can barely jump up onto the tailgate. The ride is good and it doesn't bottom out. I hope it settles down a little, though the handling is greatly improved. How did yours turn out? This has been a great 6 weeks of toplessness, eh? I may put my top on late next week. I'll get pics in the next day or so. The days are gettin shorter! Mark