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[GMCnet] 1-Ton Installation [message #150301] Sun, 20 November 2011 20:29 Go to previous message
Ken Henderson is currently offline  Ken Henderson   United States
Messages: 8726
Registered: March 2004
Location: Americus, GA
Karma:
Senior Member
I guess I've kinda been holding out on Y'All: For two weeks we've been
planning an installation party here for my 1-Ton upgrade. It started on
Friday. Here's the report I sent to the participants and those who almost
participated:

This is dedicated especially to Karen: The installation instructions are
GREAT. I may have a couple of trivial comments later, but after reading,
and following that, I want to know more about that lady: Is she REALLY a
Faye Curtis-class mechanic, or channeling her husband or some other
mechanic's skills???

KH

On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 7:53 PM, Ted Petty wrote:

> **
> Hey Ken
> How did the frontend work go?
> Did you finish?
> Did you get lots of pics?
> Wish I could have made the party but theres next time.
> Ted
>

Ted,

Weeell, no. We didn't really get finished. I'd gotten everything laid out
and a little loosening of things started when George arrived Friday
afternoon. He and I had most of the dis-assembly completed by the time
Alan & his sons arrived. We'd even been to the machine shop and used an
arbor press to replace the upper A-arms' rear bushings with the new offset
ones. With low mileage bushings, I didn't bother to replace the forward
ones with the urethane ones from Manny's kit.

We got off to a good start on Saturday morning after our pancake breakfast.
Jerry Holloway arrived at 8:20, and by the time Elaine called us for
lunch, we had almost all of the assembly work done, There was only one
significant delay: The hard line connections to the brake hoses WOULD NOT
come loose. A good flare wrench, reinforced with ViceGrips, continued to
slip without budging the connections. After too much tinkering, I figured
out that since I already had banjo fittings on the hoses, for the 80 mm
calipers I installed several years ago, we could use those. But it wasn't
quite that simple -- those hoses have 4" curved metal tubing at the banjo
fitting and it interfered with the caliper bolts as well as routing in an
entirely wrong direction. Manually bending those tubes into a usable
configuration was a pretty slow process. But it finally worked out. Then
we had trouble stopping the banjos from leaking after pressure bleeding.

Finally, we got around to the wheel alignment. Alignment was sort of a
surprise: I'd counted the turns as I removed each of the torsion bar
adjusting screws. When resetting them, those counts were worthless: The
settings were entirely different with the replacement A-arms. We didn't
bother with caster, knowing we'd set for maxium. Camber was with 0.8* on
both sides so we didn't change that, pending "settling/driving-in" and
re-alignment. Setting the wheels parallel to the frame with the laser beam
was very simple. Final toe adjustment with the long beams on my alignment
jigs was similarly easy.

By the time all that was done, it was time for everyone to head home, so we
didn't get a test drive in.

Today, Alan returned (he'd had to get the boys home to Macon by 6 pm on
Saturday) about 10 AM, by which time I'd cleaned up the shop and put all
the tools away. We then continued to fight a leak at one banjo fitting,
with the attendant necessity to re-bleed the brakes a little. We also
double checked all the fasteners for proper tightening.

Then we paid closer attention to a problem we'd all noticed much earlier:
The driver's tire almost touched the forward lower end of the wheel
opening flare. With the wheel turned even slightly to the right, there was
no clearance. This wasn't a surprise to me because of the wider tread.
The obvious solution of removing the flares wasn't a viable option: I
never meant to remove them, so I sealed them in place with PL urethane
adhesive caulk -- they might come off after considerable effort, but they'd
leave an awful mess behind. So, mr.erf's GMC tool went to work on the
fiberglass. After several small cuts, there was finally 1/4"+ clearance
for the tire at all turn angles.

The passenger side, which with the wheels straight ahead had 1-1/2" or so
of clearance, had none on left turns, so it got a little surgery also.
Both sides are going to need a little fiberglass modification when I next
get some painting done.

Finally, we headed out for a test drive. Before we got out of the yard,
Alan watched the front wheels from outside. It turned out that
acceleration and braking (and the accompanying vertical body movement)
changed the new-found tire-flare clearance. But there appeared to be a
little at worst. On the pavement, that proved incorrect: at certain
steering angles and ac/de-celleration rates, we still had interference.
The test drive was about 100 yards out and back.

Since that's a problem I can easily solve alone, we put Alan's coach on the
rack instead of mine and began work on it. It didn't take long to yank all
the suspension component out from under it, even with many of the fasteners
having definitely not been loosened since about 1993. We didn't see a lot
badly wrong, aside from the broken lower shock mounts. The lower ball
joints had been replaced but all the other components were probably
original. The idler arm is quite loose and the relay arm almost as much
so. Only the outer tie rod ends seem bad. The upper ball joints are
original and are apparently STILL good. One outer CV boot was know to be
completely shot; the other had a concealed tear.

Since the lower A-arms removed from my coach were ready (with about 15k
miles on a rebuild) to install, we went ahead and did that. The driver's
side was super easy. The passenger side was a PITA. The distance between
the mounting points on the two coaches is at least 1/4" different. Lots of
head scratching, hammering, and prying finally got that one in also.

While the hubs, knuckles, and bearings on Alan's coach have 80k+ miles on
them since I rebuilt them (and installed Zerk fittings) at Bean Station
enroute to Alaska in 2000, they are tight and smooth-running. The ones
just removed from my coach have only 15k-20k on them, but they were
assembled without Zerk fittings. They're also in apparently good shape.
Alan's decision, with my agreement, was that he'd rather continue to run
the high-mileage assemblies with Zerks than to tear down, repack, and add
Zerks to the low=mileage ones. Particularly since he'll have them as
spares.

Tomorrow I'll take the upper A-arms to the machine shop and replace the
original bushings with urethane and offset ones. If they go in easily,
I'll probably install them also. After that, I intend to leave the whole
thing until Alan returns for Thanksgiving. He's to bring new outer tie rod
ends so we can replace them while putting it all back together on Friday.

So, no, we didn't get finished. But no one should feel that's at all due
to their absence: we had enough people to get in each other's way without
any more help. :-)

Oh, about to forget -- no, I didn't get many pictures. After reading
Karen's How To, I didn't see that I could add anything useful. The few I
did take are intended to show Manny how much better the kit would look if
he painted the A-arms black and the axles and calipers bright ORANGE! :-)

I plan to do some more body work tomorrow, then do the test drive. I'm
really looking forward to that -- I can already tell that the brakes are
much improved -- knew it during the test stop coming off the rack, in fact.
If there's as much improvement in handling, I'll be "one happy camper".

Ken H.
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Ken Henderson
Americus, GA
www.gmcwipersetc.com
Large Wiring Diagrams
76 X-Birchaven
76 X-Palm Beach

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