Another death wobble thread. Now a fusable link question.

[85 Jimmy]

I just finished swapping in a Dana 60, 52's in the front, and crossover, I took the jimmy for a drive, only about a mile from the house, on the way home I hit a dip in the road at about 35-40 mph and that's when I got my death wobble. When it did that the battery shifted forward in the mount and the positive terminal hit the radiator support and blew some fuse. I pushed the truck off the road and took some wire and ran it straight from the battery to the junction block on the firewall and it cranked up and I got it home.

Anyway, everything up front is new except for the kingpins themselves and everything is torqued to spec. I've read about the washer trick, but I have everything for hydro assist, just wanted to work out the bugs before adding it just to eliminate that if anything was wrong. Should I just put the hydro assist on and forget about it? To get this thing aligned at a shop do I just need to explain to them what all I did so they don't look under there and not know what's going on? I'll figure out the short, but are there replacement inline fusable links or should I just cut out the bad one and splice in a new fuse?

 

[nvrenuf]

Get an angle finder and check your caster. What size shackles are you using?

 

[85 Jimmy]

shackles are 7.25"

 

[nvrenuf]

When I initially did my 52" spring swap I also had DW. Like you, I used 7.25" shackles because that's what a lot of the articles suggested. After checking I found my caster was out by ~4°, swapping to a 6" shackle brought the caster back into spec and (so far) has eliminated my DW.

FYI, my set up is -

* B52 brackets
* 2.5" lift 52" springs + Zero Rate but NO shims
* currently 6" shackle (originally 7.25")

Hope this helps.

 

[85 Jimmy]

I guess I'll get an angle finder and see where it's at.

 

[85 Jimmy]

Well before I go to work today I decided to go out and figure out what I shorted out yesterday. It looks like the fusable link at the junction block on the firewall. What do I need to replace this? If it matters, the 2 wires that split off goes to the alternator and the fuse block. I looked at my 91 blazer and that wire doesn't split off to 2 wires and goes into a harness that I'm not going to cut apart to find where it goes.

 

[Fordum]

You can buy replacement links at some parts stores.
All it is is a piece of wire that is a size or two smaller than the supply wire so it melts first.
But, you should not just splice in a piece of smaller gage wire. Fuseable link has a special high temp insulation that is supposed to not burst into flame if the wire overheats.
The easiest place to get one is a junkyard.
This place carries them. Never did business with them though.
http://www.madelectrical.com/catalog/fusible-link.shtml

 

[85 Jimmy]

I need to go to a junkyard anyway, I'll just cut one out and splice it in I guess.

 

[85 Jimmy]

Measuring off the top of the king pin my caster is around 12* positive, from everything I've found it should be around 4*-8*, is that right?
I saw a post by nvrenuf on pirate and he said for K5's it should be 8*, looks like I'll be shortening my shackles...