| Re: [GMCnet] Check your Lower A arm ball joint [message #322044 is a reply to message #322039] |
Sun, 13 August 2017 22:26   |
Richard Denney
Messages: 920
Registered: April 2010
Karma:
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Senior Member |
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Rob,
Very few of the things you describe are easy to do, even for someone with
mechanical skills, and having them done costs very much more than the
one-ton kit. Strengthened lower control arms and bushings alone,
considering the unreturnability of my cores, costs more than the one-ton
kit, and that doesn't include ball joints, knuckles, hubs, rotors, and
halfshafts that come with the kit. And all of those on my coach also have
over 100,000 miles on them. Replacing all that with rebuilt original stuff
costs about $3K just for parts, and the labor is greater than with the
one-ton kit.
Photos of what Steve Ferguson does to strengthen '73 lower control arms
just make me realize how much I need to replace them. The pictures don't
provide much guidance--I'm not going to be cutting and welding them. That
would NOT make me feel safer. :)
I've heard Dave's talks several times, and I know it's possible to get good
service from the stock bearings, if everything is kept perfect. Making it
perfect in the first place is the tricky bit, and it usually requires using
knuckles and hubs that have been spray-welded back to original size. When I
bought a knuckle from him (in 2008), one that had a zerk installed wasn't
available. And then the spacer still has to have grooves cut in it to pass
injected grease. And I still worry about the knuckle I didn't replace. I
certainly didn't have time to drill for zerks--I barely had time to get the
project done as it was, and still park next to you in Delaware. I had not
known it had failed and discovered it when I was removing it to replace a
CV boot.
There have been lots of vehicles that have camber that varies with
suspension travel, including the old Ford twin I-beam suspension. Those
weren't great--they have faults common to all swing axles--but they also
weren't race cars. And they were serviceable. Camber increasing with jounce
isn't really such a terrible thing for vehicles the understeer severely as
we hope a GMC will do. A few have the skills to notice a difference, though
it's hard to compare unless one is willing to take the coach to the limit
of adhesion. The vast majority of people only notice an improvement, maybe
because they restored their coach to a state of good repair for the first
time in their experience.
And then there's the 12" brakes.
Rick "for whom time is even more elusive than money" Denney
On Sun, Aug 13, 2017 at 10:09 PM Rob Mueller
wrote:
> Rick & Jim,
>
> I'm sorry but I'm going to disagree with you on a number of points, I have
> hubs and knuckles installed that were reworked by Dave
> Lenzi on Double Trouble, The Blue Streak, and a set to be installed on the
> Kingsley.
>
> --
Rick Denney
73 x-Glacier 230 "Jaws"
Off-list email to rick at rickdenney dot com
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