'89 R3500 Crew Cab 2wd to 4wd conversion & beyond

[mrk5]

Hey Scott, just noticed in this picture you didn't do anything to the top rubber isolator. I would run a bolt through it to hold the shaft from twisting. They can be kinda worn by the time we get them. I've normally opted to weld the tube, jumping over the rubber, to the outside "coupler" of sorts.

Sometimes folks still complain about slop and it's always 2 possibilities. 1)the two halves need set screws or 2) the top rubber is broken

Are you talking about the area where I drew the red arrow pointing to?

 

[y5mgisi]

I believe that is what he is referring to.

 

[mrk5]

The cap on my new steering box started leaking while we were in Moab. Called PSC and they sent me 2 new orings. Followed 4x4High's advice and put the oring in the box and then pushed the cap in. Tried tapping it in with a dead-blow hammer, but it would just pop back out. Worked best to just push in by hand and hold it while working the snap ring back in. Took a bit of effort to hold the cap and start the ring.

Here's the ring that must be removed.

When I put the ported cap in my old box, I used a narrow screwdriver to get the ring out and it's a pain in the arse. Doable, but extremely difficult. The guy at PSC told me about a hole in the top of the steering box that you can insert a punch into and push the ring out.

Made the job super simple. I've heard of some people turning the wheel a little to pop the cap out, but this can cause a problem if you go too far. I've never had a problem getting the cap out by just tapping it with a hammer.

Didn't find any obvious cause for the cap to be leaking. There was a little surface corrosion where the oring sits. I used a "very fine" scotchbrite pad to clean that off. And then put it all back together. We'll see how it holds this time around.

Lost surprising little fluid. I pull and capped the pressure line and return lines before removing cap. Maybe lost a 1/2 pint.

 

[mrk5]

Also mounted my hi-lift in the bed. It's temporary, but it's locked down for theft protection. Hard to see in the blurry pic, but there's a pad lock on the mounting bolt near the base of the jack.

Sorry for the blurry pic.

Used some existing holes in the side of the bed rail to mount some 1/2" studs and then drilled a hole in one for the padlock. Aside from that it's held in place with nuts and washers.

Felt bad when we needed a Hi-Lift to weld up my broken bumpstop pads and r3ddog not only had to do all the welding but had to get out his Hi-Lift too. Figured I should get mine in the truck.

 

[mrk5]

Better picture of the jack. Forgot my strap to hold the handle tho.

I debated long and hard about doing it but I finally broke down and replaced the Spicer lockouts, specifically the knob and collar (for lack of a better word). A couple weeks ago I was cleaning out my parts shed and came across NIB knobs I'd forgotten I'd purchased several years ago. I was undecided if I wanted to subject my nice knobs to possible trail damage. Broke down and did it because I'd rather use them than horde them.

These lockouts came with the 79 axle:

You can see they're pretty rock rashed from the days living on the K5. I've had to do some filing to get the knob to turn. Always have to look hard to figure out which way to turn the knob. They won't see that kind of abuse in the crew cab.

Here they are now:

Didn't change the guts. I have them broached for 35 spline outers.

 

[82355]

Does anyone make a metal replacement knob?

Martin

 

[mrk5]

Not that I've found. Just people talking about how it would be cool if there was.

 

[y5mgisi]

It's just crazy cause it wouldn't be too tough to cast/machine one and they WOULD sell.

 

[mrk5]

Went out to a local 4x4 club event. We don't run a trail in October because of hunting season. Instead we have Fun Days on a club member's property.

Loaded up the RTI ramp on a trailer. Had to get the trailer plug wired in on the truck.

Thought the truck seemed to a little "off" on the drive out. Steering felt a little funny and the tcase sounded a little different, not bad but different. Figured out when I went to lock the hubs that I'm not smart enough to swap the lockouts correctly. The hubs were already locked even though they were pointed at FREE. Here's where the dial ends up now when not locked.

Nowhere near the correct spot. Guess I need to rotate the collar. Good news is the front driveshaft I installed earlier this year is very smooth because I would have known right away what was going on with the old shaft.

Later I tried the "Tank Trap", as everyone in the club calls it. Big hole with a big mound of dirt at one end and then on the other side is a smaller hole.

Last year a Jeep ended up on its lid in there.

I had this problem:

Turtle on a fence post. All 4 tires weren't touching. Had to be tugged back and then I drove out to the left.

First time the 164" wheelbase has let me down.

I scored 3rd best on the RTI ramp but traveled the furthest up the ramp.

 

[mrk5]

Made a trail run this weekend and the misaligned lockout dials caused more trouble than I anticipated. I was a little distressed at first because the truck was not pulling well at all. I could tell at least one front tire was just being pushed over everything. Had to pull the hub apart to figure out it just wasn't engaged. I think because I didn't have the dial lined up, I wasn't turning it as far as I needed to. Luckily there wasn't anything broken.

We ran Chinaman's Gulch; probably my favorite trail for a number of reasons. I felt like this would be a good test of how much trouble the 14' wheelbase would cause. The first time I ran that trail in the K5 I got some pretty good body damage. I was virtually unscathed in the crewcab. Unfortunately the only pics I have are of the truck once I got home. We led the trail and I didn't have my lovely camera lady along this trip.

First incident was about halfway through the trail. Irritating because it was a lack of focus that caused it and I could have avoided the damage:

Broke the door handle button off on a tree. Didn't dent the truck, just scraped a little paint.

The one bit of "damage" was not really avoidable. It was coming down the back 1/3 of the trail. It was a downhill decent, had to drop down a steep ledge and make a hard left around a boulder while also being tipped towards the big boulder. Took 2 tries to line up on it. Had the best line I could get. I'm pretty sure the passenger rear tire was off the ground and the guy behind me confirmed. The driver side of the bed just barely touched the big boulder. Thought sure it would be a dent but it only scraped off the paint.

Also scraped up the front bumper a little but that's what it's there for.

Overall I'm very happy. It's always rewarding driving 70mph down the interstate on a 400 mile round trip to and from the trail where we climbed big ol' rocks. Plus I hauled home (5) new-to-me 37" tires courtesy of the ORD crew (more to come on that).

 

[y5mgisi]

Good fun!

 

[nvrenuf]

Are you hording any more of those chrome bezels?

 

[mrk5]

Only have the scarred up pair I took off.

 

[nvrenuf]

I was hoping you might have some more NOS bezels. Those things look fantastic!

 

[mrk5]

Yeah, I scored those from a guy on Pirate. I'm still surprised every time I look at them; had the beat up set on there to many years.

 

[mrk5]

Awhile back I downloaded a PDF copy of the service/repair manual for this truck. One of the things I frequently look for is torque spec. Because the manual is a scanned copy you can't easily search through the nearly 1800 pages. So I made a compilation of the different torque tables in the book. I attached a copy in case anyone is interested.

 

[y5mgisi]

Interesting stuff to read through!

 

[Kevmohara]

Lurked on here for quite a while what an awesome build . Loved the crew cab so much I bought one. Keep up the good work

 

[mrk5]

Thank you! Have fun with your project.

 

[mrk5]

I really didn't like the XJ shaft I was running so I opted to install a Borgeson. Damn, it was expensive but for the importance of the component and the use of the truck I decided it was worth the investment.

The Borgeson shaft comes plenty long and has to be shortened. Here's how much I took off mine.

Had to make 2 cuts so that I could even get it into place so I could mark it for the final cut.

You have to drill a hole on just one side of the double-D shaft so that a long set screw goes through and seats against the inside of the opposite wall.

A second set screw against the outside of the tube locks it in place.

Here it is painted and installed.

Made one mistake. My steering wheel doesn't lock. I ended up with it rotated 90° off where it should be for the spokes to be level. Gonna have to pull the end off the steering box and fix that. Too bad I didn't think to check it while I was doing the work the first time around.

The steering it definitely much tighter than it was before. The XJ shaft had too much slop for me. If it was for a mostly trail driven rig I would have been fine with it. Driving down the highway I didn't like the feel of it.