Wild and Free

Ryan is a one man show and does his best to keep his customers happy on top of shift work @ full time job with overtime mixed in with his family too. I am not sure when he eats or sleeps.

Interesting. Found this while looking at the links in your post.

Trying to do this on a steering gear by ones self can be a huge safety risk if going down the highway and the gear locks up due to too tight of an adjustment and you get into an accident and get hurt or hurt or kill someone else as a result of a messed up gear is not worth the risk IMHO.

Give Ryan @ Bluetop gears a call and he can walk you through it, His cell # is 701-301-1256. I will not touch steering gears anymore knowing more about what is inside and doing it correctly from visiting with him a few times about them, best left to the experts with the knowledge of doing it the proper way.

I want to know more about the engine @ the 8:55 point of the video with the blower on it. Up to that point I think I wasted about 9 minutes of my life I will never get back.

I should have taken pics but didn't think about it until after I was done. Hardest part was prying the plastic dipstick part out of the plastic cap without breaking anything, you know how plastic can be.

Brake Lights did not stay on once today, looks like my little tweaking on the cap did the trick. Went out and popped the cap just a few minutes ago and there was a very slight positive pressure which would be normal now but nothing excess like before it would about launch the cap out of my hand if I didn't have a good grip when loosening it.

Good info on types of compatibility But back off the technical and come up with a chart for basic grease types and the best applications of each and where to not use some basic types. Some greases are pressure or friction use only and some are for high speed / heat rotation application like wheel bearings and or U-joints. Some have a better retention or stickiness to them to.

I guess what I am trying to say is what Tyler posted as a question, most have absolutely no clue about grease, it is looked at as "Grease" lol not realizing there is almost as much difference here as there is in any other lubes and people should learn about it. This is why most things come as non-servicable now days. Lack of knowledge of lubes and the tight tolerances is too critical to let the masses do it themselves, there is a reason non-greasable components last about 10X longer than those people can grease.

I have seen guys repack wheel bearings with Moly grease and wonder why they were sitting along the road with bearings welded to the spindles in under a hundred miles lol...........

How I wound up with the idea of it being the power steering pump breather cap was last weekend I had gotten home and noticed the brake lites were still on so I popped the hood and popped the cap off the pump for kicks and giggles and there was a lot of pressure in the reservoir, after popping the cap off I noticed that the brake lites went out which put me into the mode of whats wrong with the breather in the cap. Like I said it has solved the issue the last couple time I have driven it but it was cooler and short trips since doing it but today will be the true test.

Have had the issue of my brake lites staying on when the engine was hot in warm weather. Has been going on for about 3 years or more and I always thought it was due to a misadjusted or sticky switch. I even had intermittent cruise control kicking out on its own so I thought this was the problem. Tried to adjust switch @ brake pedal but there is really no adjustment on a 3rd gen other than maybe bend the bracket which is really thick. Long story short I always had to pull upon the brake pedal when I shut the pickup off to get the lites to go out just became a habit but when my wife and I go to the water she does the trailering and I am on the boat and have to holler at her to make sure brake lites are off. Got tired of that so decided to look into it. I had noticed from my steering gear swap and just normal checks that the power steering pump always had an abnormal amount of pressure when cracking open the lid even when cold so I am thinking this had something to do with it. There is a breather built into the cap and the dipstick is integral to it as the breather passages go through it. Popped the dipstick out of the cap and found there is a rubber check valve in between the cap and dipstick which looked good. cleaned everything up and nothing was dirty or plugged so figured the rubber must have swelled and was putting too much pressure on the breather hole. The cap itself has a couple of tabs that act as spacers molded into it that the rubber check sits against they were maybe 1/16" high so I ground them off flush and put it all back together and so far it has taken care of my issue the last couple time I have driven it. today will be the bigger test going to be hot and pulling the pontoon to the water so if it works today I know I found the fix.

Was still under warranty yet. I am trying to talk my next in line into adding a programmer and doing deletes next go around, we actually did get a programmer for it but there was a mix up from the company we got it from thought it would work on it but it didn't since it is a 4500 there are differences from 3500 and below pickups, we sent it back and then my boss got cold feet again since it was still warranty.

We have a 2011 4500 Ram with 6.7 as a welding truck at work and it has had the egr valve replaced several times because it is plugged and stuck, can absolutely not convince the welders to not let it sit and idle all damn day.

I had to pull the intake off my wifes old 03 VW TDI @ around 200K miles due to the intake being mostly caked up too. Hers started surging at highway speeds under heavier load pulling hills. These had a really bad design for the Crank case vent and really got a lot of oil residue in with the EGR gas.

EGR valves are notorious for plugging up the intake system with an oily carbon mixture that is really hard, this one is packed solid. If you look at the picture the intake tube is taken off and the intake plenum is flush with the top of the head with carbon. It happens normally with these systems but gets a lot worse with excess idling and they are especially bad when combined with closed center crank case vent systems that pull into the EGR system as well which is where the oily part comes in and doubles down on the issue.

Ha Ha that'll teach em not to let it sit and idle so much. If he didn't notice things long before it got that bad he deserves the repair bill for this. No excuse on his part.

Time to get a head start on what's coming down the pipe for new diesel oils again with the introduction of PC-11 oils. Forget CJ4 now we have 2 more designations coming for 2017 and newer diesel engines and the other is backwards compatible. http://www.forconstructionpros.com/article/12151385/new-pc-11-diesel-oil-update-what-to-know-with-one-year-to-go

Yes those are a form of spanner wrench, these are just designed for a ratchet, most have a handle, these are also for specific size sleeves most are of a universal design.

You still have the OEM intermediate steer shaft between the steer column and gear box? If so there is some flex in the coupler in the stock shaft. Also you Do have a 3rd gen trac bar with poly bushings? If not there is another spot that will cause play.

The conversation on grease is something that I have not seen on forums. Mikes wheel bearing and speed sensor issue could well be a grease issue. There are so many different types of grease and all are spec'd out differently no different than engine oils just not quite as many options but just as critical in todays high speed high heat and close tolerance parts. One needs to be careful when choosing grease for different things as they all have different applications and specifications for such. One needs to research grease almost like oils now days. Choosing the wrong one will leave you stranded real quickly in the right circumstances. Especially when one starts injection different spec grease in non serviceable items like unit hub bearings if not using the same grease certain additives much like some oils do not play well with other lubes and can cause other issues. One wouldn't run diesel fuel as a lube in your diffs or a 90 weight in your engine so why would you look a grease any different?

Been running them on my wife's last 3 cars and have had them all studded and only ran in winter time until they are worn down to a point they will no longer be a good winter tire then keep them on through the summer until used up and probably get an average of 50K out of them just rough guessing. They make 2 full winters and then stay on the next summer and get replaced the next fall. My wife puts a lot of miles on her vehicles she averages 30K a year on her car and figuring about half of those have the winter force on. All 3 cars are mid sized cars, first was a 95 Dodge neon 2 dr. coupe then an 03 VW Jetta TDI and current is a 14 Jetta TDI all manual trans and all see quite a bit of gravel as well.

Well having used these for a couple months now I love them so much I decided to buy a second set I found locally, brand new and assembled but never used for 175. It is a pain to switch them over from one rig to the other every other day, dang things are heavy and awkward so I bought a second set. I am glad they are already assembles as that was a bit time consuming so that added to the deal as well.

Problem with running the Winter Force year round is that they do not last as long when running them on hot road conditions of summer since they are a softer rubber compound designed for winter driving conditions and will burn off a whole lot faster if you run them year round.