The Dykespot: Suspension

So, a week or so ago I set out to find a certain product I wasn't exactly 'told' (in so many words) that I needed in order to maintain my now 'Blonding' hair. That product would be... Purple Shampoo. 'What?' I thought. But Yes, Purple Shampoo. Christ, the science women utilize to keep themselves looking amazing; although none of the women I saw on this pursuit were.

Anyway, Target was the first stop, plenty of purple bottles of shampoo and conditioner, no purple shampoo to get the brassy yellow hue that my once white hair was now taking on. (Purple being the complimentary color of Yellow on a color wheel it helps reign in the intensity of whatever causes the hair to go blonde.)
In any event, I left Target thinking I was going to have to go well across town to Clackamas to find a 'Sally's' beauty supply; apparently the only place that carries the product. However, in typing in the store name to find the address, I ended up finding out there was a location I wasn't more than a block away from. Blessing. I really didn't want to drive around more at 4/5 in the afternoon on populated highways.

On entering Sally's.
Where I couldn't find even one Purple shampoo at Target, Sally's was a place with something like five different brands of it.

On opening the Shampoo. It's a dark violet. 'Purple Shampoo' right? Yeah, well I was thinking it would be more of a lavender color for some reason, maybe because that was the color of the bottle?

Ion purple shampoo.

My rating? The stuff is already doing what it's marketed for. And it wasn't even close to the cost of a random Paul Mitchell bottle of shampoo; freaking 22/26$ like I thought it would be.

Eagle:

Washed out and cleaned the small pumps in the windshield washer reservoir. I also bought some more advanced/aftermarket/universal nozzles to put on the ends of the lines the come with the car normally. Haven't gotten around to installing them yet though. So water basically spits out onto the windshield.

I also installed different shocks for the rear of the car.
The shocks on it when I bought it were meant to be standard length but also came with 'load springs' to support the weight of a towed load. Because I added two inches to the height of the car's regular stance I basically elongated the entire width of that shock
So, whenever I hit a bump there was little to no distance left for the cylinder in the shock to travel in order to absorb the impact. I had already really banged the rear of the car around just taking it slowly over some speed bumps. With this said I found some shocks that have an extra three to four inches on my originals, they are stock for a 2wd 97 Ford F150. Unfortunately, I still can't find one that has the load springs on them to help with weight should I ever want to tow any thing.

Steering stabilizer
Got to work on the steering damper/stabilizer, which is a resistance shock that mounts from a front cross member under the car to another part of the swaybar on the suspension. I ended up having some issues pulling it off; cotter pin, a tapered shaft I thought might be threaded through; but was just hung up. So after several hours of cleaning dirt and grime and an hour and a half grinding a sleeve that came with the new damper so I could slide the damper over over the stock bolt. I came to find; just as I was mounting up the new damper, the new cylinder was far too long and girthy a replacement.

During this time I also shared my attention with cleaning the rear differential cover so as to drop the old gear oil within.

I utilized Gunk's citrus degreaser spray for the dirt and grime on the cover, which worked much nicer than their aerosols.
And once I got the Cover off I sprayed down the differential gears with some B12 Carb cleaner, I got to cleaning/sanding the rust off the cover and painting it as I waited for the oil and cleaner to drain.
My Black and Decker Wizard fitted with a steel brush made quick work of cleaning the rust and polishing the metal. Though the bristles flying off the brush as they wore and lodging themselves into my cloths has been a bother. Some of the rust seemed to braze over but once those patches were broken up with something like a solid, sharp gasket scraper or razor, the metal underneath was them reached. While the rotary tool makes the job easier I still spent a lot of time hunched over the part grinding away.

Once the part was clean and paint was dry I applied Grey RTV to the cover and mounted it.

Differential cover pre paint and cleaning

Diff cover after paint and reinstall

Waiting for the RTV to tack up and dry I headed to the parts store to see if I could lay eyes on a damper that would better fit.

Going through all that were on the shelf I found one that was a potential match (exact actually) and bought it, but when I got home I decided I wanted to try and make a white one I didn't buy work so I could use a transparent AMC logo decal on it; the white color of the shock would show through where white needed to be on the logo; versus the black which the AMC logo never was. The next day I found out that the white stabilizer wouldn't work so I stuck with the black 'exact' replacement and decided I would eventually paint it white.

But arriving home arriving home with the RTV on the diff dried, I filled the differential, no leaks; good news, and began working on installing the new rear shocks.

Running into several problems,
A metal sleeve within the rubber bushings of the shocks; meant for the '97 F-150, I imagine was pre installed in the shock. I needed to remove this because the axle itself already had posts that didn't need a sleeve, i.e. the shock wouldnt go on the post with the sleeve in the bushing.
This thing was a bitch and a half to remove.
I ended up pressing it out by crimping the end of it shut with vice grips then pressing it would with a two inch 3/8's ratchet extension. First I tried a rubber mallet with a small bit of success, but then I ended up using the weight of the car by easing the car's rear drum; relieving pressure on the floor jack to drop it down, atop the extension with the shock on a 4x4 piece of wood.

This worked, but took awhile; very tight rubber. So another case of mental 'Dykeman garage antics' to make only having one set of hands and a garage full of random stuff to help get jobs done when you don't have the tool specifically designed for what you are trying to do.

This in turn lead to the next problem, fitting the same tight rubber bushing over the stud in the axle that acted as a sleeve. I got it over the threads and flush with the sleeve part of the stud, but it's diameter was bigger and hence I couldn't get the rubber to advance all the way to the hilt, regardless what I would try. I ended up asking my friend Mike if he could bring over a Ratchet strap so as to force the rubber on the the stud at least enough for me to get a nut and washer over the bushing, once at that point I could simply use the wrench to advance the bushing it the rest of the way to the hilt.

When Mike arrived he couldn't exactly get a hammer to pound it into position so he opted to climb under the car and push the damn thing into position; not something I wanted to try with the car on Jackstands; he scared himself too hitting one of them as he crawled back out from underneath. All of that basically being the reason I didn't crawl under the car as he did. After that we both went through the same motions with the other shock; removing it's stock sleeve from the bushing with the wheel drum and Mike then crawled under the car once the wheel was back on the driver side. I hadn't been under the impression shocks could put installed without removing the tires.

New Rear Shock next to lift block.

Once all that was done over the next few days, myself and everyone else began noticing the differential was leaking. It turns out the pinion seal; where the drive line meets the axle, was bad, so with a new seal purchased and the drive line eventually removed; which included the removal and cleaning of the yolk/u-joints, with the help of some friends I installed the new seal and new u-joints into the Driveline; since it was already removed.

Russell trying to crack the nut that locks the yolk into the differential.

There were a lot of little issues we ran into trying to get all this done.

First of all, the diff was covered in more dirt than I thought. I spent probably a half hour chipping it off the case while everyone waited wondering what was taking so long.

The next issue was the fact that no one could bust the nut off the yolk. Even one of our Co-workers that was so built his chest was touching the bottom of the car as he lay under it, put enough force on it to lift the car and elongate the leaf springs. I ended up going to the store and buying an impact gun. It actually came right off with that.

The next issue was that one of the tiny bolts that holds the U-Joint to the yolk broke off inside; due to its age, and I needed to wait until the next day to buy some new ones thanks to it being so late in the evening.

The next day with new U-Joints purchased and new bolts/retaining sleeves the drive line was once again removed. The rest of the night was spent installing new Joints and then re installing them on the vehicle.

My next project was cleaning the headliner board; which consisted of removing the old material and brushing away the old rotted foam and spraying the mildewed fiber glass with a water/hydrogen peroxide mixture and some Melaluca disinfectant. Once this was done I purchased some headliner material from Joanne's and some bondo fiberglass repair from Autozone to repair a spot of water damage; patching the hole with cloth and coating it with resin.

From there I laid out the material and sprayed it with headliner adhesive which looks like spider webbing. Without getting into too much of what I screwed up and did right, I am now plus a headliner with no more moldy material.