....Well I made a few hour job into an All day affair wrenching on my Tahoe (all that I completely forget to take pics on top of that)...
Finally....after day after weeks of monsoon rains in Oregon, we got a beautiful sunny day, which was perfect for the job I had been planning:
Rebuild the front end; with upper and lower control arms, tie rods (inner/outer), sway bar links.
I had even rented the Inner tie rod tool yesterday in prep for some good weather (my garage is a bit tight for the big hoe, so outside work is preferred)....
Well - as I was double checking everything this AM I found out quickly that the inner tie-rod and the inner tie rods weren't going to play nice (the wrench part isn't deep enough to grab the inner rod)....I decided I might be OK, so rather than abort mission, decided to just see if the inners were ok or not and deal with it then..(turns out they are in perfect shape, no replacement necessary)..
Then for the life of me couldn't get the lower ball joints to budge....with any amount of hammering (they are actually in very good condition too, so I aborted my plan of replacing the lowers control arms...and will just keep a watch on them for the future).
Now, the most unfortunate part...the passenger side Upper control arm replacement (MOOG) was a BLEM, correct item/part #, but the distance between the two inner bolt -thru knuckles was 1/2" short, a spacing that is just not acceptable to work or correct.....
So, with a $20 bill bribe to my kind neighbor, I got a ride to the local auto parts to pick up Another upper control arm at the nice retail price of of $109 (and it didn't even come with zerk fitting, which kinda bummed me out)....but it did fit so thats bonus.... long story, but I got her all bolted back together today, with the exception of the sway bar links (and I also have new sway bar bushings for my Eibachs to do in the AM.)
Can't wait to get finished in the AM and get it to the alignment shop and feel the difference...btw, the BJ's and outer tie-rods were completely hammered.