SARsquid(Jamie)'s wrench day
- Thread starter BIGdaddy
- Start date
SAR_Squid79
Explorer
HUGE THANK-YOU TO EVERYONE THAT CAME OUT!!!
We had a great turn out, of a great bunch of guys!
Special thanks to Mike (Sparky) who drove the farthest, was the 1st to arrive, the last to leave, the hardest worker, and donated a bottle of that really expensive Toyota coolant! Thank you very much, Sparky! :clap:
Mechanical Geniuses:
1.) SAR_Squid79 - Jamie
2.) Pray4Surf - Rick
3.) Sparky - Mike (TTORA)
4.) Drabnor - RJ (TTORA)
5.) XJ Mike - Mike
6.) TACODOC - Dave
7.) BIGdaddy - Brian
The work list of what I wanted to get done:
- AC Idler pulley and AC belt - DONE
- URD Crank Shaft Pulley - DONE
- Power Steering Rack Bushings - DONE
- Extended Rear Brake Line - NOPE
- Low-Profile Banjo Bolts - DONE
- Brake Flush/Bleed - DONE
- All new belts and hoses - DONE
When Sparky arrived, we got started pretty much exactly at 9:00am. Everyone else started trickling in after that. I think we had the URD pulley on the truck by 10:00. Once again - thanks to Sparky, that wasn't nearly as daunting as I had thought.
...but I'm glad that I elected not to remove the entire radiator!
We did have to remove the Demello Skid Plate Kit so we could drain the Radiator a little bit to remove the top hose. We also removed all the belts, the fan shroud, the fan/clutch/and water pump pullies. Pulled the OEM crankshaft pulley, and then removed the seized AC Idler Pulley.
Here you can see the stock crankshaft pulley removed, and the old AC pulley still in place:
New AC pulley installed:
New URD Crankshaft Pulley:
For those of you who may not know or understand the purpose or reason for installing this URD Crankshaft Pulley - This pulley and Headers are really the only other way for me to squeeze more performance out of my truck without going to Water Injection & more boost. The OEM crankshaft pulley weighs a hefty 10.2 pounds. The URD pulley weighs an impressive 40 ounces. That means the stock pulley weighs 385% more than the URD. There are a few credible Internet sources that claim for every pound reduced in rotational mass of the crankshaft assembly, you gain 2.7 acceleration horsepower!
Some beers started getting cracked at about 11:30, as the Team went to work on the Energy Suspension Power Steering Rack Bushings. I kind of felt guilty because Drabnor and I were getting all the new belts and hoses installed (thanks for all the sanity checks, RJ!), and Pray4Surf, Sparky, TACODOC, and XJmike were jumping all over the steering rack bushings. There was really no room for me to help. THANKS GUYS! :kewl:
At about 1:00 or so, pizza was delivered from Papa John's, and everybody took a break to eat some pizza, have a few tasty beverages, check out everybody's rigs, swap some stories, and contemplate retirement. TACODOC even opened up his FLIPPAC for us. Very cool!
After lunch, we got the steering rack bushings all buttoned up. Installed the Low-Profile Brake Banjo bolts (so that my banjos will clear my Icon coilovers when the front suspension flexes), reistalled the Demello Skid Plate (PITA).
At about 2:30, the 4 of us that were left decided to try to tackle the rear brake line, which we were not able to budge, so I think I'm going to have to take that to a shop...
I had an entire set of belts & hoses in my "Trail Spares" kit. Everyone convinced me to put on all the new stuff, and use the old ones as trail spares. Today, I plan to rebuild that old AC idler pulley, and then add that to my spares kit.
Finally, we tensioned all the belts, added coolant back to the radiator, bled the brakes with Pray4Surf's super cool brake bleeder, started the truck and took her for a test drive.
She definitely feels like she lost a few pounds!!!
Thanks again to everyone that came out, and made for a great day!
Dave Bennett
Adventurist
Always fun to lend a hand to a fellow ExPo'er :victory:
adventureduo
Dave Druck [KI6LBB]
Right on! Looks like good times.