The weekend is now over and it was time to finish putting the G back together. I spent about 12 hours today getting the truck back on the road and it was definitely not a fun day. Temperatures dipped over the past week and today was a balmy 38 degrees. A far cry from the 55 degrees the other day when I took everything apart.
Started the day by draining the front diff fluid. This was mostly a sanity check to make sure that there wasn't any swivel ball grease getting into the diff fluid. The chances of this were low, and this is still not a 100% check that the inner axle seal isn't leaking, but it's something at least. Fluid was about 30k miles old and looked pretty good and clean. I replaced it with Amsoil Severe Gear 75W-90.
Next up was to tackle replacing the swivel ball gaskets with the split type.
Took off the seal cover plate and found a pretty tell-tale sign of why my swivel balls were leaking. the gasket was trash, hard, brittle, and cracked in a bunch of places. Definitely no chance of any grease being held in there with what was left of this seal. I took everything apart, cleaned everything as well as I could, then cleaned it all again. I took out the inner ring also and cleaned that until all that was left was the blue marine grease I have been using in the swivel balls. The paper gasket was torn in a bunch of places also, so I scraped it off with a razer blade and cleaned all the mating surfaces.
I had a really tough time stretching the new swivel ball split type seal, but then remembered to heat it in boiling water in order to soften it. It also didn't help that it was close to freezing temperatures today. Soaked it in some boiled water for ~5 minutes.
I positioned the staple at the top of the swivel ball, and started at the top wedging the seal into position while stretching the rest of it around the ball and seating it with the cover plate. This process was pretty tedious but after figuring out a method, it went pretty quickly.
One side down, the second to go. I cleaned and cleaned as much as I could. I'm hoping that it all stays clean-ish over time. The first side took maybe 1 hour with lots of trial and error. The second side took maybe 20 minutes after figuring out a process to correctly seat the seal while stretching it.
I refilled both swivel balls with marine grease.
PSA: If your swivel balls are leaking and they have not been replaced, it's probably time. My G is 16 years old and the seals have most likely never been changed. As you can see, they were completely trashed and severely discolored also. Package on the left is the P/N for the split type seal. I purchased from Vlad @ fourbyfourclub as the prices were all about the same.
Next up was installing the bushings in the sway bar links. I used a hydraulic press for this and it worked ok. Not sure if there is another way to do this.
Installed the same bushings in the sway bar ends in the same method. Note: I forgot to install the sway bar mounting bushings at this stage, that I discovered later when I went to bolt up the sway bar to the radius arms. Don't make my mistake!!
Next up was the Caster Correction Eccentric Bushings for the Radius Arms. I drew up a template and it worked ok, but in hindsight, I would have made a template out of wood with long bolts to ensure perfect fitment.
Radius arm bushings installed and ready to go onto the G.
What a pain in the rear end. Installation took around an hour of reach side. The poly caster correction bushings are wider than OEM, so getting the arms into position was difficult. Also, the rear radius arm to frame bushings were the most difficult to align correctly and install. Doing this outside, on the ground, in the cold, at night is definitely not something that is a good time.
And I had to remove the sway bar links to slide on the sway bar mounting bushings. In the OE setup, the sway bar bolts can't be removed from the link without removing links from the frame, or removing the radius arms. Very poor design here. I reversed the bolts when installing, but the reason for the OE bolt direction is most likely due to the clearance between the arm and the radius arm. With the bolt head, there is roughly 1/4" clearance. With the bolt/nut reversed, the clearance is more like 1/8". We'll see if this ends up being an issue.
Finally finished around 11pm.
Went for a test drive on some local roads that are pretty bad with ruts, cracks, potholes, etc. I am glad to say that the steering vibration/body vibration when going over bad road surfaces is GONE. After changing everything, I'm positive the culprit for my issues were the Radius Arm to Frame bushings. They were pretty deformed and cracking. Since the attachment here is a nut that bottoms out on shoulder, the stability of the radius arm, and thus the axle, is completely dependent on these bushings being the proper elasticity and the correct side (to compress as expected).
I wouldn't want to do this job again, but I could most likely do it again in half the time. Just how it goes.
Anyway, cheers everyone, and if there are any questions or comments on everything I've done to my G, feel free to ask away.
Cheers!