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97 King Cab DS-Ton build - Rock Jock 60 and shaved 14

Thanks! Amber and I put a lot of work and money into this rig and we are very honored to have the award on display at our house this year.

The truck did awesome in Moab (other than power steering pump issues :doah:). It continues to exceed my expectations, it does great in the rocks, in the fast stuff and it even does pretty good in the sand. Of the group I led up Moab Rim only 2 of us made it up the sand hill, the S-10 went up it twice :D. I even ended up doing a jumping session out at the sand dunes Sunday night after wheeling all week and it did that pretty well too.
 
Small update, I won a pair of Sidetracked Offroad LEDs at Blazer Bash and installed them as backup lights (on a separate switch).
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The first one died after 1.5 years of abuse on a truck with much bigger tires than stock and no power steering cooler.

The second one was a POS rebuild that was bad out of the box.

The third is still currently running in the truck, but it's noisy and needs to be replaced. I'm going to put a PSC remote reservoir can on the next pump and put in a larger remote reservoir with an integrated filter along with a better cooler.
 
I had some issues with the power steering pump and box in Moab. The original one I put in the truck when I built it went out, the first replacement I installed in Moab went out after only a few miles and the 2nd replacement worked, but whined really bad (I also plumbed in a cheap cooler and filter when I installed the 2nd pump). On one of the trails I hit a big rock hard enough with the passenger tire to blow out one of the seals on the steering box, so that was leaking pretty bad as well.

I decided the proper fix was a system with at least twice as much fluid capacity and a better cooler along with another stock replacement pump and steering box. I ordered up some parts from PSC and picked up a replacement box, pump, fittings and hose locally. The reservoir also has a built in filter to help keep the fluid clean.
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I installed the remote reservoir can on the stock pump using a -6 AN adapter for the high pressure line.
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I added some tabs to bolt the cooler on in front of the condenser.
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Finally I added some brackets to mount the new reservoir off of the drivers side shock hoop and plumbed everything up.
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I used a vacuum pump to bleed the system, the capacity went from the 1qt stock capacity to 2.5 quarts. There was no foaming or noise from the pump after starting it up. I took it on a test run and already I've realized that the new pump has issues too. It appears that the pressure valve is set too soft as I have difficulty steering when driving slow on asphalt or when I'm in four wheel drive and have traction offroad. :cussing:

I'm hoping I can just swap out the valve from the back, but it may require a whole pump swap again. This time I think I'll have a local shop rebuild it instead of getting the crap Chinese reman pumps from Autozone...
 
I forgot to update this but my power steering system is finally fixed. I just broke down and ordered a PSC pump, now everything works perfectly. The truck has better steering than it's ever had, the pump is quiet, no leaks and it just plain works.

Live and learn.
 
I figured I'd wake this thread up from the dead for some updates and a question for some of you half-ton guys out there.

First, the update. I started having issues with tires, I think this can be attributed to the speeds the suspension allows me to maintain across the rocky desert here in AZ. I was busting the tire carcasses and cutting through the treads. After killing 3 tires in a month all while they were on factory backorder from Goodyear I decided to switch to a desert tire. Luckily Discount let me cert out my 3 bad Goodyears and I purchased 4 new General Grabber Red Letters.
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I didn't know anyone that was running these tires so I didn't know what to expect. What I found really surprised me, they are the much better on the rocks than any tire I've ever run before. I imagine it's like going from a DOT tire to stickies, except these are still DOT tires.

Now, the down side. I'm breaking parts with these tires, so far I've busted 2 Superior 4340 stub shafts, a Superior 4340 u-joint and Sunday I bent a Superior 12 bolt shaft... I had only broken one u-joint in the 2 years I was on Goodyears and that was due to lack of maintenance (it was bone dry and rusted) so I have to attribute this to the tires since the rest of these failures have happened in the 2.5 months I've been running the Grabbers.
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Now this is where I need the 1/2 ton experience. The rear axle is bent between the flange and the bearing and I can't push the axle in far enough to get the c-clip off. Any ideas that don't fill my ARB with metal shavings?
:dunno:
 
Would loosening the bearing caps a bit to allow the diff to move around slightly, possibly allow enough "slack" for you to push the axle in and remove the clip? :dunno:




PS I want a set of those tires bad. All I hear is good things.
 
The axle isn't even moving 1/16" right now, so I don't think removing the bearing caps would help. It needs to move a full 1/4" to get the clip out.

Also, if you want to hear the bad side of the tires I'll list them here:
-Get them mounted Red Label in, it's just going to fade/get rubbed off on rocks anyways.
-They suck in sand
-They suck in mud

That's pretty much it, I've beat the hell out of them and haven't had a single puncture and very minimal lugs breaking. I did change the pressure I was running when I switched tires too though to help with the problems I was having before. I was running 12.5psi on the Goodyears and I'm running 20psi on these.
 
Correct. Just thought it might allow for some slack in there and for you to get it pushed in enough.
 
Would it be possible to cut off the flange and possibly the bearing portion from the end to allow you to push it in far enough? The shaft is already ruined it may be about the only option to not harm the ARB.
 
All my data is at 20psi, I have them aired up to that to keep me from killing them with high speeds. I have not aired them down further for sand or mud because I'm usually just passing through and not intentionally there to play.

I was denied quite a few hill climbs in Johnson Valley. I almost had to winch on the sand hill next to Chocolate Thunder just to get out of the spot I parked in to watch the late night shenanigans. It takes quite a bit of wheel speed to get the wet sand to clean out of the lugs.
 
I had that same problem, but with a stock axles shaft and Gov Lock carrier.







I replaced the entire axle assembly......

Martin
 
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