Thank you very much for the detailed information.
i will make a new thread when i get started ( should be within the next couple weeks here ) and take pictures of my progress!
to the other guys that posted , thanks a TON! you guys basically convinced me on this , i have been thinking it over for months .. i love this forum!
Quote:
Originally Posted by BowTieOgre
I consider myself a novice mechanic and I did the spindles and springs on my truck by myself in an afternoon. Its not that difficult, especially after reading the articles on the site. As far as the rear is concerned I put in a flip kit with the help of a buddy and all I had to do was grind rivets off the stock bumpstop brackets so I could remove them...no cutting to speak of and no c-notch. I still have 3-4" of clearance between the axle tube and frame and the two have NEVER made contact.
Here is the procedure as far as I remember it.
-Parking brake on, put the front of the truck on jackstands...I put mine under the lower control arm shafts.
-Remove the wheels, loosen the brake caliper and secure it out of the way...dont let it dangle by the hose.
-Pry off the dust cap on the rotor, remove the cotter pin, remove the castle nut and pull off the rotor. I always set the rotor stud side up on some cardboard and tap the inner bearing out with a long handle screwdriver.
-If your bearings dont need replacing then clean the old grease out, let them dry and repack them. You can use the tool from the store or do it by hand.
-Remove the cotter pin and nut from the outer tie rod end connected to the stock spindles and use the pickle fork to separate them.
-Put your floor jack under the lower control arm and jack it up a little, remove the cotter pins and nuts from the top and bottom ball joints and carefully lower the jack while keeping one hand on the spindle to keep it from jumping at you and remember, its heavy.
-After the spindle is out of the way pull the jack out of the way and get that stock spring out of there. When you put the new one in make sure it is seated in the bottom AND the top before you put the new spindle on, if you dont it may make noise later on.
-Everything else is pretty much the reverse of removal. If you arent comfortable with cotter pins you might want to have a few extra handy in case you mess a few up. Oh, inspect your ball joints while youre down there, the lowers are easy to remove/install with a tool loaned from the parts store...the uppers have to be drilled out.
As far as the flip kit goes I removed my leaf springs and relocated them to under the axle and when it came time to reinstall them we used C clamps to reduce the distance between the eyelets and they slid right back into place. The grinding of the rivets was the most work back there. OH, I did have to take some meat out of the drivers side plate where it was making contact with the lower shock mount bolt. The grinder did the trick fairly quick and after some rattle can black you would never know.
Tools - I think I used two 3 ton jack stands, a 3 ton jack, the allen wrench for the caliper bolts, needle nose pliers for the cotter pins, a good selection of sockets, flat head screw driver, pickle fork, grinder, 5lb hammer, grease gun, a good buddy and a cold beer.
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