Busy day, home with the kids for a snow day, already planned to get new tires and alignment for the truck.
Buy Michelin "X LT" tires, really Defender LTX, at 12:30, promised in an hour, ready in an hour. Lots of coupons right now, four new Michelin truck tires for $531 including tax, can't beat that. Ate lunch with youngest during install and brought take-out home for the other. Dropped off youngest at a friend's and then went to a local shop for an alignment (this BJ's doesn't do alignments).
Get to shop, 20 minutes later, Alignment Denied. Mechanic shows me, bad ball joint, bad tie rod end. Yup, they're loose.
Writes up an estimate, $400, 2 hours labor on the ball joint alone???? I point out with a torsion bar suspension and 3 bolts on top, Dakota ball joints are really easy. He says no, have to cut rivets. I said no, we were just looking at them, bolts. I replaced that knuckle a couple of years ago. He goes out to look and comes back looking chastened, knocks an hour off of the estimate, now $300. No time to do it this late in the afternoon. I say money's tight, I'll do it myself.
OK... IF I get to it... LATER this week or NEXT WEEK he says... just call back and will get me in the next day...
IF? Next week? Challenge accepted! 3:30 p.m.
I have to pick up parts, buy fish and cook dinner and put an O-Ring in the Honda ATF filter cap (and reinstall battery box) to get it out of the way first. UPS delivered the O-Ring while I was out. I made baked honey/butter/chipotle salmon and green bean casserole.
Get back to cars at 5:00. Honda done at 5:45 p.m. Shuffle Honda out of garage and get to work on truck. Wife comes home, dinner eaten at 7:00. Back to work at 7:30
IR impact takes off every nut without issue except castle nut of tie rod end, no room, SK wrench and dead blow hammer work fine removing castle nut. So glad I put AS on threads when I swapped in that knuckle. Yes I should have put a new ball joint on at that time, but hey I got 2 years out of it.
OTC ball joint popper works great. I prop up one big wrench on two stumps and beat on the other with the deadblow, and free up the tie rod end. Popper and tie rod end puller too short for tie rod end. BFH pops it down on first good whack.
Truck done at 8:15. Reshuffling cars to new garage status and put away tools, have to wipe down every tool because melting snow and rain and water everywhere, almost 9:00.
Measured tread, it's a full 12/32". Could not find that spec online for some reason. Cool. I keep hearing about thin tread new Michelin tires, not a problem here.
Going to call back first thing in the morning, and reschedule that alignment.
Buy Michelin "X LT" tires, really Defender LTX, at 12:30, promised in an hour, ready in an hour. Lots of coupons right now, four new Michelin truck tires for $531 including tax, can't beat that. Ate lunch with youngest during install and brought take-out home for the other. Dropped off youngest at a friend's and then went to a local shop for an alignment (this BJ's doesn't do alignments).
Get to shop, 20 minutes later, Alignment Denied. Mechanic shows me, bad ball joint, bad tie rod end. Yup, they're loose.
Writes up an estimate, $400, 2 hours labor on the ball joint alone???? I point out with a torsion bar suspension and 3 bolts on top, Dakota ball joints are really easy. He says no, have to cut rivets. I said no, we were just looking at them, bolts. I replaced that knuckle a couple of years ago. He goes out to look and comes back looking chastened, knocks an hour off of the estimate, now $300. No time to do it this late in the afternoon. I say money's tight, I'll do it myself.
OK... IF I get to it... LATER this week or NEXT WEEK he says... just call back and will get me in the next day...
IF? Next week? Challenge accepted! 3:30 p.m.
I have to pick up parts, buy fish and cook dinner and put an O-Ring in the Honda ATF filter cap (and reinstall battery box) to get it out of the way first. UPS delivered the O-Ring while I was out. I made baked honey/butter/chipotle salmon and green bean casserole.
Get back to cars at 5:00. Honda done at 5:45 p.m. Shuffle Honda out of garage and get to work on truck. Wife comes home, dinner eaten at 7:00. Back to work at 7:30
IR impact takes off every nut without issue except castle nut of tie rod end, no room, SK wrench and dead blow hammer work fine removing castle nut. So glad I put AS on threads when I swapped in that knuckle. Yes I should have put a new ball joint on at that time, but hey I got 2 years out of it.
OTC ball joint popper works great. I prop up one big wrench on two stumps and beat on the other with the deadblow, and free up the tie rod end. Popper and tie rod end puller too short for tie rod end. BFH pops it down on first good whack.
Truck done at 8:15. Reshuffling cars to new garage status and put away tools, have to wipe down every tool because melting snow and rain and water everywhere, almost 9:00.
Measured tread, it's a full 12/32". Could not find that spec online for some reason. Cool. I keep hearing about thin tread new Michelin tires, not a problem here.
Going to call back first thing in the morning, and reschedule that alignment.
