It's been a while since I updated this. The truck has been running well aside from a failed Crank Position Sensor. Luckily it died in the driveway and I had a spare on hand. A five minute swap had her back in business. I've fixed minor stuff like the missing bushing in the driver's door hinge that holds the door open. $5 and 10 minutes and it makes a huge difference not getting whacked by the door getting in and out. I added a full length roll-up soft tonneau cover by Access and a bed rug from some discarded commercial carpet. I was originally going to do a tool box and get the tonneau to fit the remainder of the bed, but the shorter cover was $250 MORE than the long one. WTH? So far I'm very happy with the cover. It's useful, decorative, and nearly water tight. The leaks are due to the condition of my truck though, not the cover, and I'm chasing and sealing them as I find them. Once I add some quick relaease cross bars to mount bikes on it will be a fairly good, flexible system to keep dry cargo covered and still open up for big cargo easily.
Earning her keep with 1000lbs of Pecan firewood:
This weekend I finally got around to doing the front end work I've been putting off - ball joints and the entire steering rack. And front shocks. I've had the parts but not the motivation.
The first thing I found was that I needed brakes. How far can you run front brakes and not eat a rotor? EXACTLY this far:
Not perfectly even wear inner/outer, but not too bad given the rusty condition of the calipers. I cleaned the caliper slides and knocked the rust off the piston surfaces, I think they'll be fine for now.
Next thing I found was wheel bearings that were loose. Not bad loose, but not right either. The driver's side looked like new bearings that were never packed well enough and not torqued correctly. Passenger side was obviously an older bearing and had more grease but was still a little loose. I really wonder if the wobble in the front end that the alignment tech saw was bearings too loose instead of balljoints. Oh well, they were factory units (no zerks) so I replaced then anyway. Interestingly, the front shocks were either factory original or very old dealer installed parts. They are Motorcraft parts that were US made and had one piece rubber bushings on top that I had to cut to get out of the uppers.
Caveman repair work:
Ball joints 1, vise 0
After that I decided it might be easier to push the ball joint out the correct way instead of the wrong way, and easier to use an impact gun. Luckily the Truck came with a supplemental work bench:
Once both sides were done I reassembled everything except the calipers - pads will be here Wednesday from RA. Just a note - if you're using bent up coat hangers to hang the caliper brackets from the frame while you work, be careful on the passenger side. If you are really skilled you can stick the wire hanger through the little hole and right into the positive starter connection and create a E36 M3load of sparks while flash welding the hanger to the frame. Still not sure how many fuses I'll have to replace...
Once both wheel bearings were packed and properly torqued the driver's side fels really nice, and the passenger side was acceptable. Not perfectly smooth but good enough for now and no free play. I'll keep an ear on it though, it will probably be on it's way out in another few thousand miles but the piggy bank was dry.
Then I pulled the rest of the steering linkage out and set about recreating it in fresh parts:
Unfortunately I ordered two adjuster sleeves for the drv side and they are not the same. Drv side linkage is 20mm, psg is 22mm. Then I ran out of weekend, motivation, and energy. The correct sleeve is coming in with the brakes so I hope to have her bolted up and take it to the alignment shop Friday.
The adventure continues.
