so, I got this trooper for free from a buddy of mine. brought it home, looked it over- minor things in the interior (lights, rear door inner handles not working, stereo is junk, some speakers not working)
exterior wise its straight, but rusty around the rear wheel-wells. windshield is cracked, but not in my line of sight. broken pass side exterior mirror lens (power &heated) tires shot, stone bruised headlights, inop fog lights.
jacked it up and pulled the tires- brakes ok, new shocks all around, BUT worn-out front end parts. bad ball-joints, tie rod, idler pitman, idler arm. bad outer cv boot
so fast forward 6 months, I was slowly getting parts for it.
complete front end kit-$173- all 4 ball-joints, inner and outer tie-rods, drag link and sway-bar end links.
pit-man idler, $16
4 cv boots, $18 each.
so, this last weekend I tackled the front-end. put the unit on the hoist. those ball joints came out pretty easy, pickle fork on the top, pitman arm remover for the bottom-boy did they snap out of the bottom!
tie-rod remover (and a bfhammer) for the drag-link and tie-rod ends.
axle boots were easy, but one of the new boots had the wrong clamp in the box, the wife and I fought with it- finally grabbed a clamp from the other box, and things went easy after that. :roll:
its all back together, now off to the alignment shop to straighten the front-end, and install 4 different tires (current ones scuffed off on the front, one rear is badly weather cracked, the spare is slashed on the sidewall)
so far, $261 in parts.
need to order sway bar bushings. that's another $30
new to me tires were free. lt 245/75 r 16 bridgestones. 60-75 % tread on them
next, some rad work-I noticed a small leak at the drain petcock, tried tightening it by hand and -it snapped off-but its threads are still in the hole. maybe a small reverse easy-out will get it out. will do a cooling system flush at the same time.
don't know when the timing belt/water pump was last done- that's on the list as well.
pesky rear abs light on. sensor, or wiring? will try to pull codes out of it.
that's about it ,for now......
exterior wise its straight, but rusty around the rear wheel-wells. windshield is cracked, but not in my line of sight. broken pass side exterior mirror lens (power &heated) tires shot, stone bruised headlights, inop fog lights.
jacked it up and pulled the tires- brakes ok, new shocks all around, BUT worn-out front end parts. bad ball-joints, tie rod, idler pitman, idler arm. bad outer cv boot
so fast forward 6 months, I was slowly getting parts for it.
complete front end kit-$173- all 4 ball-joints, inner and outer tie-rods, drag link and sway-bar end links.
pit-man idler, $16
4 cv boots, $18 each.
so, this last weekend I tackled the front-end. put the unit on the hoist. those ball joints came out pretty easy, pickle fork on the top, pitman arm remover for the bottom-boy did they snap out of the bottom!
tie-rod remover (and a bfhammer) for the drag-link and tie-rod ends.
axle boots were easy, but one of the new boots had the wrong clamp in the box, the wife and I fought with it- finally grabbed a clamp from the other box, and things went easy after that. :roll:
its all back together, now off to the alignment shop to straighten the front-end, and install 4 different tires (current ones scuffed off on the front, one rear is badly weather cracked, the spare is slashed on the sidewall)
so far, $261 in parts.
need to order sway bar bushings. that's another $30
new to me tires were free. lt 245/75 r 16 bridgestones. 60-75 % tread on them
next, some rad work-I noticed a small leak at the drain petcock, tried tightening it by hand and -it snapped off-but its threads are still in the hole. maybe a small reverse easy-out will get it out. will do a cooling system flush at the same time.
don't know when the timing belt/water pump was last done- that's on the list as well.
pesky rear abs light on. sensor, or wiring? will try to pull codes out of it.
that's about it ,for now......