Next Up: Tires and Suspension
This is going to take a bit to work through since I have done the suspension twice now. When I got the truck it was sitting on the factory suspension. The only change to the ride height was the 285/75R16 all season tires.
When the all seasons were due to be replaced I went with some A/T's of the same size. I looked at going to 33"s but the price was much more vs the 285's. A comparison shows that 285/75R16's are only .2" shorter than 33"s but they are almost 3/4" wider. I have not had any rubbing issues.
When I first got the truck it had this slight whine sometimes when going straight but the whine would stop with any slight turn. Eventually it threw and ABS fault code. I found that the front drivers side wheel bearing was shot and the ABS sensor was rubbing the tone ring. I went ahead and replaced both front hubs with Detroit Axle units (515036).
I knew that I wanted to lift the truck for a little more ground clearance. When I checked out the options I found 3-2 Lift and Level kits $400+, a couple of 4" option $1800+, and a lot of 6" options at $1800+. I did not really want to go as high as a 6" and could not justify spending the cost of the 4" options. I ended up going with a 3-2 Lift and Level from Wulf Suspensions. I ordered the full kit with 2" spring spacers for the rear coils, new torsion keys for the front and longer shocks all the way around.
Installation is pretty straight forward. On the rear disconnect the shocks and let the axle hang enough to get the spacers on top of the coils. Watch your rear differential breather hose and the rubber brake line hose just above the differential. They might get stretched or break off. I do not remember doing it but I must have removed the bracket that hold the brake line T from the differential cover. Remember to bolt this bracket back in place. Apparently I did not and it would come back to bite me in the backside. There are lots of videos on replacing torsions keys and front end shocks out there. Installation on the front went smooth.
When I put the truck back on the ground I had almost 4+ inches of lift on the front but only about 3/4" on the rear. Went back under and backed off the torsion keys until I was right at 3" over where I started but still only had about 3/4" in the rear. Back to Google for some research on why I was not getting 2" in the rear. Eventually I figured out that my truck had the manual self leveling Nivomat shocks (RPO G65) and the premium smooth ride (RPO ZW7). This combo uses softer springs than non-smooth ride trucks. The least expensive option was to put the Nivomats back on with some 2" shock extenders. I looked for longer Nivomats but they are expensive. Replacing the springs would have meant trying to squeeze taller springs into the perches with the spacers and I did not feel like doing that at the time. With the original shocks and the extenders I was getting the full 2" of lift out back.
A lift means an alignment was needed. Took it over to the local tire shop only to find out that my pitman arm and idler arms were shot. Back to the house we go. I put in a new Moog pitman (K6536HD) and Moog idler (6534HD). The idler was pretty easy to swap. The pitman was not. It sits right above the cross member and there is very little room to work with a puller. I had to unbolt the steering box from the frame to be able to wiggle things around enough to get the job done. After a bunch of cussing, bashed knuckles and walking away for breaks I was able to get the pitman swapped out. Back to the tire shop. The tech warned me that depending on the lift the A-arms may not have enough adjustment to correct the alignment. If that was the case a new set of problem solver A-arms were in my future. Luckily he was able to get the alignment to come into spec. I drove the truck like this for about a year and a half. Here is the before (top) and after (bottom).
18 months later I took the truck into Death Valley. My Suburban and a brand new 2020 (250 miles on the clock) AWD Dodge Durango made the trip. We ran into 50 miles of washboard road. Anything over about 7-10 miles per hour would rattle your teeth out. About 30 miles in my brake pedal went to the floor with hardly any brake power. We pulled over an found that the steel brake line over the rear axle had snapped on the drivers side and all my brake fluid was gone. Remember that bracket that holds the steel line T to the differential cover? Looks like I forgot to reattach it and the steel brake line and the rear axle were not moving together causing the brake line to snap. With temperatures around 115 degrees we could not stay where we were. We limped to our destination and did a more thorough inspection. The Durango had destroyed all it's shocks and we were pulling melted material from the wheels. My shocks looked like this:
So now I have zero shocks and barely any brakes. I pinched off the broken brake line and got a message out to someone coming later to bring me some brake fluid. A couple of days later we limped both trucks out to Bishop. The guys at Autozone helped me out with some tools and materials to plug off the broken line and bleed the brakes as best I could in the parking lot. It was a long, slow, gentle 320 mile drive home. When I got home and got the truck on the stands I found more damage.
Here comes round two on the suspension! Since I had to replace all four shocks and I knew the cost of Nivomat's was high I started looking for options. Everyone I talked to said Bilstien's were the way to go. I looked at the 4600's, the 5100's and the 5160's with remote reservoirs. I could not justify the extra cost for remote reservoirs on the 5160's that had nearly the same amount of travel as the 5100's. I went with 5100's, 24-185783 rear shocks and 24-186643 front shocks. I knew from the last time I did the suspension that I would need to change the coils springs. I went with Moog 81069 rear springs. So now the rear is more like 3" above where I originally started. I do not notice the ride being much different than when the smooth ride parts were on it.
I bought a replacement hard brake line kit from Dorman (919+149) and replaced both hard lines on the rear axle. While I had the rear suspension apart I took the time to replace the rear brake pads and the parking brake hardware. The parking brake had not worked since I got the truck.
On the front end I found the inner tie rod boot broken on the passenger side and one of the sway bar end links coming apart. Replaced the inner tie rods (Moog ES3488), outer tie rods (Moog ES3493T), the sway bar end links and bushings (Prothane 7-1169). All the bump stops were looking pretty worn as well so I installed these:
I am not crazy about the yellow but they work. It took a little bit of wrestling to get them to seat in the pockets but they fit.
I had purchased a set of Power Stop front calipers at the auction along with new rotors a few months earlier. Since I was going to need to bleed the brakes any way now was the time to put them on along with a new set of Power Stop pads. Just a hint: make sure you put the calipers on with the bleeder screws at the top. You can get them on the wrong side with the bleeders down and it will make bleeding the brakes impossible. I banged my head on the wall too long before I realized my error. Also since I had drained all the brake fluid out and pulled air into the system I needed to bleed the ABS pump. I bought an Autel MaxiCheck Pro to get this done. It worked like a champ and let me recalibrate my speedometer for the oversized tires as well.
I think that gets us to what I am running on the truck today.
