Measure Once, Cut Twice: A Story of Excitement and Impatience

Nope. Bolt wasn't touching. I was able to slide a piece of paper between it and the axle tube. I'm going to try to adjust caster at this point because I don't know what else to do.
 
Tried messing with caster. It's still DW at 4, 5, 6, and 7 deg.

Going to have all 4 tires rebalanced.
 
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Are these the same wheels and tires you had on before the axle swap? Alignment angles don't cause DW btw.
 
Wow that is frustrating. I would start with the balance. do you feel any other shimmies while driving?
 
Lou said:
Wow that is frustrating. I would start with the balance. do you feel any other shimmies while driving?
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No. When I built up the courage to take it on the highway and get it up to 70 mph, it was smooth as glass, as long as I didn't hit a bump LOL
 
taylormade73 said:
No. When I built up the courage to take it on the highway and get it up to 70 mph, it was smooth as glass, as long as I didn't hit a bump LOL
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recheck torque on EVERY bolt in your front end. You might have one stretched and not holding properly. That happened to me once. I had a stretched control arm bolt in the rear end. I went through and torqued everything but it had a clunk. I couldn't figure it out for the life of me, so I took it in. The guy drove it, and found the source in about 10 minutes. He retorqued everything and in the process, the bolt broke. Viola!

I KNEW the bolts were torqued, so I didn't check them...guess what. I should have.
 
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I think I got a bad ball joint from Spicer. While retorquing, I noticed a slight gap between the boot and the nut on the upper passenger BJ. None of the other BJs have the gap. Jacked it up today and there is slight play when wiggling the passenger tire back and forth that is not present in the driver side. I also noticed while jacking it up that the gap increased slightly.

I thought lateral play was unit bearing and up and down play is BJ? The movement is consistent with the gap I see though and the unit bearings have less than 5k miles on them since I got from BMB.

Thoughts?

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The gap between the boot and the knuckle means nothing. Pump it with grease and it will go away. Is the nut tight? Is the lateral play in the balljoints? Helps to have a second set of hands for these things.
 
Lou said:
The gap between the boot and the knuckle means nothing. Pump it with grease and it will go away. Is the nut tight? Is the lateral play in the balljoints? Helps to have a second set of hands for these things.
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The nut is torque to 75 foot pounds. I did have a second set of hands. There is play in the passenger side but there is zero play in the driver side.
 
Lou said:
The gap between the boot and the knuckle means nothing. Pump it with grease and it will go away. Is the nut tight? Is the lateral play in the balljoints? Helps to have a second set of hands for these things.
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I know the gap between boot and knuckle can change but I'm more referring to the distance between knuckle and inner C. It is noticeably larger on the passenger side. Does that matter if the bolt is properly torqued to 75 ft lbs? If it matters then I'll measure with a caliper. What is acceptable tolerance/difference when seating the knuckle?
 
taylormade73 said:
I know the gap between boot and knuckle can change but I'm more referring to the distance between knuckle and inner C. It is noticeably larger on the passenger side. Does that matter if the bolt is properly torqued to 75 ft lbs? If it matters then I'll measure with a caliper. What is acceptable tolerance/difference when seating the knuckle?
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This is a good question for @mrblaine
 
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If you can get any lateral play in the upper joint, its no good. Don't worry about distance. If it wiggles, its bad. The upper move up and down along its axis, but not laterally. The lower moves in a radius, but not up and down.
 
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BuildBreakRepeat said:
This is a good question for @mrblaine
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I just remembered Blaine already answered this the other day.
mrblaine said:
The acceptable tolerance for lower ball joint play is 1/16" vertical play which most develop in a very short number of miles. How easy the pin moves is not an indicator of wear or imminent failure. The upper pin floats up and down about 1/4" or so and the lateral play that is acceptable is less than .003" or basically no perceptible lateral play.

Not of high importance but the lack of dust shields move the unit bearing about .040 inward and that can cause issues with tolerance stacking and put the caliper saddles too far off center on the the rotor. Not often but sometimes you will have to clearance the pad clips by bending the little ends over tighter to keep the rotor from dragging on them.
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I guess I have to determine whether the lateral play is from the BJ or the unit bearing.
 
if its the unit bearing you should be able to feel the play by holding the tire at 12 and 6 and also 9 and 3 o'clock. You should be able to feel the play no matter how you hold the tire and wiggle it. But if its the balljoint you should really only feel it by holding it at 12 and 6.
 
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Lou said:
if its the unit bearing you should be able to feel the play by holding the tire at 12 and 6 and also 9 and 3 o'clock. You should be able to feel the play no matter how you hold the tire and wiggle it. But if its the balljoint you should really only feel it by holding it at 12 and 6.
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Ok. I believe I was holding it between 11 and 1. So I'll try again tonight.
 
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