Seriously, I need some help. Im out in the country at my shop doing my 3'' spindle lift and 2'' coil lift and something is NOT right. I have no internet out here and am on my cell doing this.

So I took my front end apart pretty much in this order. I removed the wheel, caliper, shock, stabilizer bar, wheel hub, tie rod, upper BJ and then lower BJ and then the spindle. I pulled the spring out and put a 2'' spacer on top. I put the spring in, mounted the spindle, then the ball joints, wheel hub, the shock, tie rod and then the stabilzer bar. Now I did fight like hell getting the stabilzer bar back in place. I had to use a ratchet strap and wrap around it and ratchet it in place. I got everything apart and back together with no real issues. My ball joints seemed fine, no cracks or anything. The did spin when I put the nuts back in them and so I put a small wrench on the end of them and tighten the nuts up. Is that normal?

Anyway, so I back out of the shop and i notice lots of grass in my treads like Im dragging the tires or something. So I pull it back in and lift the front to spin the tires and sure enough the spin freely. I know I will need an alignment after doing this but something else is going on I think. My steering will freely ****** in either direction. I made sure I tightened everything up. So I drive it backwards and it Im leaving tracks in the grass like a 4cyl in spinning in the grass and tearing it just a little but not breaking the dirt. Thats what it looks like.

I take it out on the road and got about 100ft before I knew I wasnt going to make it home. It sounded like I was dragging the tires and just chewing rubber.

can someone PLEASE tell me WTF is going on.

 

never mind, got some answers on another board.

 

Sorry we couldnt help you soon enough. What was the problem?

 

well it seems that when doing a spindle lift the alignment gets WAY off. I knew it would be some but didn't expect it to be like it was. I thought something else was wrong even though I was sure I put everythiing back together just fine.

So I had to adjust my tie rods and eyeball my tires so that's its somewhat drivable. I started working on it at about 9am yesterday and quit about 3am this morning.

I do still need one other piece of help. I managed to get my shackles out last night and the new ones in. I mounted them to the frame first but since the laf springs sprung up, how do I pull them back down so I can mount them to the shackle? Also, there are 4 holes in my shackles for different height settings. is the hole closest to the end that mounts to the frame the highest lift or the lowest?

THX

 

Nevermind, I got the shackles done also. The leaf springs were not the easiest things to pull down (even the the rear jacked up extremely high). The good news is its all finished now. THANK GOD. What a PITA it was doing all of this.

 

yes, but now u have the pride of doin it yourself and saved a ton of $$$ for some other mods lol. i read ur question yesterday, but had NO idea what it could have been.

 

Thats ok. Live and learn. I do everything I can to my own rides. I meet guys that dont even know how to change plugs and if that were me I wouldnt even admit it.