Sunnyside's Gladiator build begins...

sunnysideup said:
75,000 miles.... decided to get to work on a few things. Reid knuckles, rebuilt RCV's , new brakes, since I had it apart-new hubs and new synergy ball joints. I had one steer smart joint on the tie rod go bad... swaped it out too. That took me about 8.5 hours. I'm slow. But everything is tourqed back down, cleaned and filled up, toe in all set. New fluids in the front diff. I also decied to change the transmission fluid- it was not clean fluids- I think "lifetime tranny fluid" is a lie in things things to make you burn up tranmissions after warrenty- lol. At 75,000 miles I wish I would have done it sooner... I used new filter, new mopar fluids... and it actually made a noticable cahnge in shifting! While I was under there... New transfercase fluid too- It's winter, its cold, I have a wood stove heated garage and it was time to get it done!
Click to expand...
Oh... the first press I rented from Oreiley's- it had a stress fracture (I just thought it was paint or something). Pressed one ball joint out- and on the second ball joint the press snapped off inside the clamp! It just started to move the ball joint down. In the picture its offset because I had hit it with a big hammer to try to get it loose. I took it back- they gave me another press and everything went perfect with the second press. They said they were going to test me for "steroids" after looking at the first one. It just twisted off!
 

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sunnysideup said:
75,000 miles.... decided to get to work on a few things. Reid knuckles, rebuilt RCV's , new brakes, since I had it apart-new hubs and new synergy ball joints. I had one steer smart joint on the tie rod go bad... swaped it out too. That took me about 8.5 hours. I'm slow. But everything is tourqed back down, cleaned and filled up, toe in all set. New fluids in the front diff. I also decied to change the transmission fluid- it was not clean fluids- I think "lifetime tranny fluid" is a lie with these things to make you burn up tranmissions after warrenty runs out- lol. At 75,000 miles I wish I would have done it sooner... it was dark and the magnets had a lot of sludge on them. I used new filter, new mopar fluids... and it actually made a noticable change in shifting! While I was under there... New transfercase fluid too- It's winter, its cold, I have a wood stove heated garage and it was time to get it done!
Click to expand...
Nice! That’s good info on the tranny. Do you do a lot of city, stop and go, driving by chance?
 
I added the Apex steering boost kit, all new fluid.
It really does well with 37's.... not sure what it would do with 40's... but it significantly adds to the steering control in contested situations- lol.
I am running at about 1750- you can boost to 2000- stock is 1200? If you do your labor yourself it is a pretty cheap way to improve steering performance. I notice it helps on-road some as well. For 5 years I've ran it stock- and the electric power steering often feels like it just "gives up" when you are pressing to get your tires to go towards/over an obsticle. I have not heard any bad reports on these yet? I already updated the steering box to the metal one with the TSB... I also put the rancho brace on the box. It has a nice cooler with it as well. So far everything seems happy- I've put about 600 miles on it now.

I also put on a new belt... replaced 4 pulleys- found the one that was chirping. All quiet now! I also have a spare belt now. My advice is to replace the belt when you can do it in a garage with the tools you want. It is not as easy as in the past Jeep models. It can be done on the trail, but the amount of things you have to remove to change one is stupid! LOL- but I'm not an engineer...

Replaced the cabin air filter... don't overlook that- mine was really bad. This is the second one I've put in but I'm amazed how much it captures.

I try to get this stuff done before spring- I don't like to work on the truck when I could be out using it!
 
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