I’m back with an Esky this time

[Snowbound]

Alright, I blame you guys for my mistake. Someone should have told me that I’m messing up. Thought you had my back?

I’m in garage working on my other crap when she comes out to go to the store. Fired up the Esky and a ploom of smoke blows out the tail pipe and fills the garage. So bad I had to let it air out with double door open and kick a fan on to clear it out. What the hell?

Remember this?





Why did you let me do this? I’m really starting to rethink our relationship.

This wide open breather to the valve cover allowed oil to be sucked into the intake and puddled when it was off. Burned it while running. I only had 3 quarts of oil in the engine!! So I started draining what was left of the oil, I had no idea what oil was in it, and it was changed before I bought it. Had 80% oil life left but I figured I’d start over and run my Amsoil and K&N oil filter. What I did about the oil consumption was run a 3/8 hose off hollowed out PCV up by brake booster and put a small filter/breather on it for a temporary fix. I plugged off the vacuum line also. I was gonna swap out the valve cover back to the original but I found out there is an updated version of it that has different baffles to eliminate oil consumption. Ordered that and will swap it out once it arrives and do my coil brackets at the same time.

While I was under there I noticed the inside of he drivers rotor was ugly. Might as well get some brakes too. Seen the sway bar end link bushings weren’t that great of shape either so I picked some of those up as well.

$320 later I have the rotors, ceramic pads, end links, oil filter and oil. Then I got busy.



Driver side rotor outboard side.



And the outboard pad.



Inboard side of rotor.



And the pad.



It’s got a nice taper to it. Thankfully it was just sticking on the bracket and the caliper wasn’t bad. Everything else went back together fine.

Passenger side





Drivers side.





Now I know what your thinking, “why didn’t you clean and paint that stuff while it was off, you lazy bastard”. I was gonna. But, there’s always a butt, I found a bad lower ball joint on passenger side. A sloppy upper on drivers side. And both outer tie rod ends have play. I was pressed for time, didn’t plan on any of this until I seen the smoke it blew out and then noticed the bad rotor. So all of this is coming back apart in the near future to replace the entire front end. Anyone that followed my Denali build seen that when I do a front end- I do the entire front end. Got on Rockauto and ordered both upper arms, lower ball joints, inner and outer tie rod ends and also got new camber bolts for the upper arms. There goes another $450. So in one day I spent almost $800 on this thing. I was going to order the drop kit since I’ll have the spindle off anyway but I’m not sure what kit and how low I’m going yet and I can’t wait to change these bad parts. This coming weekend it’s getting all changed and then it’s going in for alignment and to have a leaky valve stem fixed. After that it’s off to my tint guy and doing rear in 5%, driver and passenger in 20% and windshield in a 35% with a brow in 5%. I’m dropping money like it’s on fire so the lowering kit will have to wait until I can catch up with my other priorities. Not to mention my washer took a crap on Xmas eve so I had to go buy a new one last Thursday. I tried fixing my old one but it was in the transmission and they wanted $400 for a new transmission and I would have to wait 6 days to get it. It’s always something!!


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[Snowbound]

Parts came in. So when I get off work in the morning I’ll start the tear down and see how far I can get before I’m dragging ass too bad to continue. Have to come back to work on Saturday so whatever I don’t get done will be finished up Saturday afternoon.







Guess I didn’t get a pic of tie rods but they are just AC Delco professional series. Innes and outers. I ordered tie rod sleeves also but they don’t fit. They are too small. I might try drilling them out and retapping. I want them on and no time to wait on another set. Alignment scheduled for Monday afternoon.


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[Tonyrodz]

Parts came in. So when I get off work in the morning I’ll start the tear down and see how far I can get before I’m dragging ass too bad to continue. Have to come back to work on Saturday so whatever I don’t get done will be finished up Saturday afternoon.







Guess I didn’t get a pic of tie rods but they are just AC Delco professional series. Innes and outers. I ordered tie rod sleeves also but they don’t fit. They are too small. I might try drilling them out and retapping. I want them on and no time to wait on another set. Alignment scheduled for Monday afternoon.


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Nice looking control arms. Are they steel or aluminum?

 

[Snowbound]

Nice looking control arms. Are they steel or aluminum?

Steel. They have a protective coating on them. Seem to be a quality part.


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[Snowbound]

Making progress. I hit the ground running and had this apart besides lower ball joint out in an hour.

Pulled tire, and disconnected wheel speed sensor.



Removed tie rod from spindle and removed caliper and set it over the sway bar.





Removed ball joint nuts, pulled caliper bracket and rotor and removed CV shaft nut. Removed the 6 bolts on the inside CV shaft so I could pull that thru hub bearing. Spindle broke free pretty easily.



I marked the camber cams where the cam pins are so I can put them back as close to the same spot as they were. Then transferred the marks to the new cams.



One a-arm bolt broke but I was able to remove them with an air hammer. Then pulled the a-arm.

I beat out the lower ball joint and installed the new one after cleaning up the hole.



Cleaned the frame and caliper. Wire brushed it, used die grinder with scotch brite pad and then used engine degreaser followed by brake cleaner and the wiper it all down with wax and grease remover.



Let that dry and used blow gun to get any remaining dirt off it and then coated it with POR15.



Gonna move to the drivers side now while that dries. Most likely won’t get anything back together until 2mrw.




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[adventurenali92]

Damn that’s a lot of work! It’s good that you’re proactive about replacing att though! So can I just bring you my truck and have you rebuild my front end?!?! Lol

 

[Snowbound]

Damn that’s a lot of work! It’s good that you’re proactive about replacing att though! So can I just bring you my truck and have you rebuild my front end?!?! Lol

I feel like I’ve done so many complete front ends in the past year, it’s not even a pain anymore. It’s just one step at a time and before you know it, done.
So yeah, bring it over. Don’t forget the case of Corona and bottle of fireball. [emoji12]



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[Snowbound]

Both a-arm bolts broke on this side. I had to cut the stud on the bottom ball joint too. This side was trying to test my patients. But I came out on top.



Now time to clean and paint it. Then separate hub bearings from spindles and get them cleaned up and painted. That’ll be about it for the day.


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[Tonyrodz]

Both a-arm bolts broke on this side. I had to cut the stud on the bottom ball joint too. This side was trying to test my patients. But I came out on top.



Now time to clean and paint it. Then separate hub bearings from spindles and get them cleaned up and painted. That’ll be about it for the day.


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You make it look really easy.

 

[Snowbound]

Bottom ball joint, just in case someone is wondering how this thing comes out and goes back in.

This is a factory joint. It has this sleeve that’s crushed over the top of the a-arm.



First thing you have to do is get a chisel and a BFH and chip off that ring as flush to the arm as possible.



Once it’s chipped off, take your BFH and smack the top of the ball joint. Keep beating it like it owes you money. You’ll see it start to move.



It’s starting to remember that 20 spot I lent it.



Now I’m starting to call it by my exes name.



You don’t want to hit the arm and nick it so take your chisel or punch and knock it the rest of the way out. By this point it’s surrendered.



I cleaned up the top of the arm and sanded the inside slightly. No need to go crazy.



Now take your ball joint and put it in your press and get some good tension on it. Be sure you have your grease zerk lined up where you want it.



When you have tension on the press, smack the arm on the sides where there’s plenty of meat and the joint will jar it’s self in a little. Put more pressure on joint and repeat. It walked in but it needs that little jar to keep it moving straight. I could have impacted it but if it goes crooked you can ruin the aluminum arm or even break it. I find a few snacks while pressing works best.

We’re in. No problem.






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