Ball joints needed replacement so I thought I would tackle that job myself and then at the same I would install my Spyntech Shorty free wheel hubs that have been sitting in my garage for over a year now.

 

I also had a steering brace that I wanted to get installed.

 

While I am at it I thought I might as well do a needed brake job and replace the u-joints on the stub shafts since I had everything apart.  I think doing all this work at once actually will save me a significant amount of time over doing each job separately when everything reached the end of its life.

 

While in the middle of the project I have made a note that I need to replace my front sway bar links as well because the bushings are coming apart and look very tired and worn.

 

The plan is when all this work gets done then I put my 19.5s back on for the season. 

 

I have one side completed now and am working on the other side now.  Can't wait to try it out after all the work is done.  I'm thinking there will be a noticeable change in the driving feel!

 

Hoping for an mpg increase also!

 

 

 

 

I just did the whole shebang on my truck as well, except for the sway bar. I immediately noticed the ride being smoother, and quieter. The steering feel at low speed seems better as well.  Have not had a chance to check MPG yet.

 

The main motivation for me was all the needless rotating parts. I had a axle Ujoint with less than 10K I thought I could salvage, and it already had a dry cap that would`nt take grease. The unit bearings there is no way to really know the condition of until your screwed. Then there is the front driveshaft.... Then probably the worst scenario is , how many miles before you have transfer case issues??

 

Its a little expensive, but I`m very happy with the piece of mind now that its done.

 

BTW, them are some trick looking brake rotors you got there  .. The 19.5s look good as well.

You will be quite happy with the whole setup! I did hubs, ball joints, sway bar end links, and a steering stabilizer all at the same time. I think inlay have done shocks at the same time as well.

I have to ask about the slotted and vented rotors, I Always understood them to lower braking performance on anything but race cars with intentially oversized rotos. The reason being that you have decreased surface area, which is the main factor behind braking power. The other reason is the friction coefficient is changed which can have a large impact on antilock brakes.

It's very rare to see anything but an OEM reccommendation for brakes on these trucks.

You will be quite happy with the whole setup! I did hubs, ball joints, sway bar end links, and a steering stabilizer all at the same time. I think inlay have done shocks at the same time as well.

I have to ask about the slotted and vented rotors, I Always understood them to lower braking performance on anything but race cars with intentially oversized rotos. The reason being that you have decreased surface area, which is the main factor behind braking power. The other reason is the friction coefficient is changed which can have a large impact on antilock brakes.

It's very rare to see anything but an OEM reccommendation for brakes on these trucks.

Ya, I probably set myself up for a debate on the value/tradeoff of slotted/drill/smooth rotor benefits.

 

In theory there is going to be less surface area when compared to smooth but then again there is the supposed benefit of off gas release, pad wiping (cleaning), faster wet weather performance etc., vs increased pad wear, rotor propensity for cracking between holes,  etc., etc., etc.

 

I have read many articles about the good vs the bad and believe me you can find stuff that supports either design.  I even have read SAE papers/reports on rotor design and I can't say when you look at all the published material (that I saw) that I was able to rule definetively one way or the other.  Much has to do with manufacturing processes, metallurgy technology, rotor slot and hole design, user application etc.

 

For me it finally came down to just having to try it myself to see if it would work for me or not.  Of course I recognize that if someone else were to try the same setup with their truck and style of driving that their mileage may vary.

 

I have run these on my gen 2 truck and have 55k miles on the front rotors with heavy duty LT pads and you can't tell there has been much wear at all.  I didn't put the cheap ones on and they were cryogenically treated as well and they weren't riddled with holes like some versions of drilled rotors I've seen.  All the holes are chamfered nicely and there has been no cracking or anything negative that I have noticed (in my style of driving).  I definetly felt improved braking when I needed to anchor the truck in a hurry (compared to what was originally on the truck).  Nothing scientific but just good biting in hard braking.  I am not a road racer so I can't really say I am hard on the brakes or that they have seen a constant extended down hill heavily loaded application but when I used them they always worked for me.

 

Now I can't say for sure if the performance I felt was from the pads only or the rotors only or the combo but it was good enough for me to want to do it again when I needed to do brakes on my gen 3.  My gen 3 is used to carry much more load than I do on the gen 2 truck but I also have an e-brake on the gen 3 so I just don't feel at all worried about  braking performance in my driving conditions.

Once thing is for sure on 3rd gens the large brakes and EB do wonders. I haven't even started thinking about pad replacement yet and I am at 108K mikes and quite often have a GVW of 11,000-12,000. GCW will run up to 20K but the trailer should stop most of its own weight, if not all.

Took the passenger side axle out today and bent my 3/4" drive ratchet wrench handle.  That thing is no toy!

 

Couldn't for the life of me break the axle nut loose.  Had to get a piece of pipe 60" long and then I had to stand on it and bounce it loose.  Didn't notice it bent the ratchet until I went to pick it up to put it away.  

 

Rust, over tight or what I am not sure, but wow for a while I thought I might have to get the acetylene torch out and do a some serious persuading.

 

 

The OEM torque specs are 263 ft/lbs, so they are on there!

I've got a 3/4" impact gun... I most likely don't have enough air to drive it.

Well I got both sides done now and have also installed new sway bar links.

 

 

I have those same links. They seem to work great.

I have always noticed the fuel tank has a strong vacuum pull every time I opened the cap to refuel.  Thought maybe cap was bad but then did a little research and found the cap is not vented by design.  Tried to look at the tank fittings while the tank was still on the truck and couldn't really see things well enough to come to any conclusion.  I was looking for mud and debris build up around what I thought might be the the tank vacuum relief valves.

 

So I decided it was time to drop the tank and take a better look and see if I could figure out what was going on.  While I had the tank down I decided to install a new tank fill vent on the highest portion of the tank so as to improve the filling experience (read as: shorten the time to fill the tank).

 

My fuel gauge has only been reading 1/4 tank even when the tank had 400 miles on it so I suspected a bad sending unit so this item was added to my to do list also.

 

So I put some cribbing under the tank to support it while I started to remove the straps.  I have never removed the tank before so I wasn't sure how heavy or awkward it would be to lower it by myself.

 

But once the straps were off, I just removed some of the cribbing on each side of the tank until it was lowered a few inches so I could reach up above the tank and disconnect the electrical connection as well as the in/out fuel lines.  Then the tank was free and I could remove the rest of the cribbing and the tank was on the ground.  I didn't have to jack the truck up at all.  The tank was able to slide under and out from the truck.  (I had my 19.5's on so I had a little extra height to maneuver around under the truck.  The tank was much lighter than I expected.  I had less than a gallon of fuel left in it and the whole thing couldn't have been more than 40 pounds or so.

 

So I removed the in-tank pump and looked in the tank and found some interesting things. Some sort of particles setting in the tank; the inside of the tank is almost a white color, the tank has a baffle in it and you can see the rollover/tank vacuum relief valves on each end of the tank.  One thing that doesn't look right to me is each of those rollover/vacuum relief valves had a cap on them.  So I can't understand how they could possibly work when they were capped off.  I wonder if the caps weren't installed when the tank was manufactured and shipped to the truck assembly plant but were not removed when the tank was installed and hooked up in the truck.  I am now thinking this is the cause of my tank vacuum problem.  In fact if you look at the tank real closely you can see where the bottom and at least one side has been pulled inward.  There are no leaks so the integrity of the tank is still intact but I am planning to remove those caps and install a section of hose to each one and put a filter of some sort on each end to ensure nothing can get into the end but still remain open so a vacuum isn't pulled on the tank when fuel is being drawn down.

 

I have included some pictures of everything.  I installed a 1/2 inch bulk head fitting on the top of the tank which will serve as the tank fill vent.  The original vent will be capped off.

 

I have also taken the tank to a radiator shop that has the ability to clean out diesel fuel tanks and then when I reassemble the tank I will install a new pump.

 

 

 

Well replaced the in tank fuel pump and re-installed the tank.  It was more of a challenge for me to re-install than remove because it is fairly tight quarters to get your hands in everywhere where you need to reconnect fuel lines, electrical connections and all the hoses and clamps.  But got it done in about 1 hour or so and then put in about 6 gallons of diesel so I could start the truck and take out to fill the tank and get first impressions on driving the truck with all the updates.

 

Driving seems like the front end is so free and easy feeling.  Doesn't feel like the same truck.

 

The engine load seems to be down about 2-4% while driving in various situations around town and a little on the open country roads.  Nothing scientific but just from the gauge readings.  Hope that translates into some economy when I get more driving experience with the freewheeling hubs.  Put about 40 miles on it and then took a quick temp reading on the hubs with the infra red temp gauge.  Only showed 91 degrees so I'll keep and eye on this reading as I put longer trip miles on it to ensure that I don't have the bearings too tight. 

 

Filling the fuel tank went much faster than normal.  Pump clicked off at a tad over 31 gallons.  So I went 8 miles from my house to get to the gas station so even if I burned a gallon of gas to get to the station (which I am sure didn't happen) I now had slightly over 37 gallons in the tank.  So i am concluding that by relocating the tank vent I have much improved my refueling experience by shortening the time to fill the tank and picking up 3 + useable gallons in my tank. 

 

Next stop is to get the front end aligned and then start checking my mileage.

Once upon a time...  I wass hanging out with the guys at my then Br in Law who (like several members on the family were in excavating business).  This night the Br-I-L was no whjere to be seen but there was a gang of guys in front of the garage with a cooler in the bucket of his big dozer sticking out the door.  I picked a beverage of my choice & stepped over a big pipe sticking out from under the bucket.  The bucket was up on blocks making a nice table for the cooler.   

Eventually there was a call from inside (recognized voice as B-I-L) and everybody reached down, picked up that pipe & walked as far as we could until it hit the block.  Then we put it down. 

Another call & we walked it back to the original position...  then back again.   Yep, That was a cheater.  A 20' piece of 2" water pipe & the other end was was back under the machine.  What ever it was, we eventually did unscrew it...  

I have a son that is moving to Portland to go to school in the fall.  Made 3 trips back and forth.  1 trip pulling a trailer loaded with household furnishing etc.  Not a big one but a 6x12 flat nose which scaled at 4.5k and the bed of the truck was loaded also.  GVW was at 14.9k.  Got 16.2 mpg's going over and then 16.3 coming back unloaded, which I thought was not too bad.

 

Made the 2 other trips over with stuff in the bed only (did not scale the loads) and on the first round trip got 22.2 mpg and on the last one got 22.5 mpg.  All hand calculated.

 

Nothing scientific but it is looking very positive for the freewheeling hub install.  I can't say enough for how easy this thing is to drive and steer now.  Don't really know how to explain it but it just feels so much freer or effortless.

 

I'm liking things so far!