Sunnyside's Gladiator build begins...

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!
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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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!
Nice! That’s good info on the tranny. Do you do a lot of city, stop and go, driving by chance?
 
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