The Grackle

General_Tarfun

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Location
Atlanta, GA
But when you wheel it'll be completely noticeable. I wouldn't waste your time. The rear swaybar is destined for the garage.

That's true, I wanted to try it mostly because on my last road trip to Texas there was a nasty crosswind coming off the gulf made the X exhausting to keep in a straight line on the interstate. Plus I had a weird steering issue when the weight of the truck got shifted around.

Maybe I can drill a hole in one of the endlink studs and use quick release cotter pin to hold it in place when in use. I'll need to look but I think there's clearance to swing the link down and zip tie it to the bar when I don't want it to be attached.
 

General_Tarfun

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Location
Atlanta, GA
Got the links yesterday and now I'm ready to install this thing over the weekend and see how it handles on the interstate. With one link disconnected at the frame I found it can swing down and be zip tied to the arm for a sort-of quick disconnect.

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General_Tarfun

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Location
Atlanta, GA
I had the day off from work so I went ahead and installed the sway bar I've been working on. Had no problems with the install except I had to swap the bushings to the outside of the clamp on the bar, it's been a long time since I've had this on there so easy to forget lol. Relocating the emergency brake cable wasn't too bad, I had to remove maybe 5 bolts securing it along the axle and relocate where it's secured. You can see long zip ties in the pics, those were just for the temp fitment while getting the bar on.

It's not quite leveled out with the ground but this mod moves the bar mount up 3" and that's as high as I wanted a bracket sticking up.

So the real question is did any of this make a difference? I can say that it did, a small one but there's noticeably less side to side movement. Atlanta has pretty much no flat roads that aren't also S curving constantly and my stock spring-rate front coils have a lot of give in that kind of driving so I'm happy to have a little less of the leaning on every turn.

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General_Tarfun

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Location
Atlanta, GA
I pulled off the front poly extended bump stops I have yesterday to get a look at mounting them differently and on the way to the hardware store I noticed something weird. The harshness over bumps that made me think they were too short was almost completely gone. Drove around today over some familiar rough roads and the same thing happened, it drives much better without them. Need to figure out whether to shorten them up or find a softer option I think. For now they are staying off.
 

TerryD

Total Tease
Supporting Member
Location
Covington, Va
I pulled off the front poly extended bump stops I have yesterday to get a look at mounting them differently and on the way to the hardware store I noticed something weird. The harshness over bumps that made me think they were too short was almost completely gone. Drove around today over some familiar rough roads and the same thing happened, it drives much better without them. Need to figure out whether to shorten them up or find a softer option I think. For now they are staying off.

A lot of those are trimmable. What type do you have?
 

TerryD

Total Tease
Supporting Member
Location
Covington, Va
You should be able to cut those off and not affect them. Just lop off one step at a time till you get the effect you want from them.
 

TerryD

Total Tease
Supporting Member
Location
Covington, Va
Well that makes this easier to deal with lol, now if only there were a way to make them softer.

You can try reducing the over all diameter of them or sanding the taper down longer to reduce their effective "spring rate". You're cutting them up anyways so play with them. I think those are the $30-40 Energy suspension ones so it's not like you're dicing up a $300 set of Timbrens....
 

General_Tarfun

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Location
Atlanta, GA
You can try reducing the over all diameter of them or sanding the taper down longer to reduce their effective "spring rate". You're cutting them up anyways so play with them. I think those are the $30-40 Energy suspension ones so it's not like you're dicing up a $300 set of Timbrens....

I actually used to have the front ses timbrens before I lifted, the truck basically sat on them and they had the same softness of a piece of wood so I took a drill to them. Sort of worked but I eventually just removed them entirely.

Went back to my receipts and found I only paid 11 bucks for them lol, let the cutting begin!
 
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General_Tarfun

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Location
Atlanta, GA
I started cutting one of the bump stops up last night and now I truly understand why they caused such a harsh ride, they're almost identical to the factory rear bump stop in stiffness. They have no give, I thought when I bought them that the tapered rings were for it to compress but I realize now they're really for trimming down to the length needed.

I think I'm going to cut the other one this way too and install it so the long end is facing inward on both sides and see how it does. I've been blaming my coilovers for a while now about the ride harshness getting worse, I think what happened is the coils have settled some over time leading to more frequent bump stop contact.

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westslope

Wheeling
What are we looking at here G_T? I see the top ring of the bump stock that has been sawed/sliced/cut off.

Is that a vice grip? What is that black thing with hexagonal metal and a bolt top?
 

General_Tarfun

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Location
Atlanta, GA
What are we looking at here G_T? I see the top ring of the bump stock that has been sawed/sliced/cut off.

Is that a vice grip? What is that black thing with hexagonal metal and a bolt top?

Haha sorry, looking at it now I can see it needs a little more explanation. So the bump stop is just the rubber thing, it has a short threaded stud coming off the bottom. The ring I cut off was the first cut I made, by the time it was off I realized that the rubber is way too stiff for just that bit to make a difference.

The silver hexagonal metal thing is a threaded coupling that I screwed onto it and on the bottom of it is a bolt. Those two things are from a previous project I abandoned to build an angled mount for the bump stops. I attached them to the bump stop to give me something to latch onto with the vice grips so I could make the cut with a hacksaw.

Here's a pic of it installed with what I have in mind:

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Smileyshaun

Bought an X
You know I put in the same bumpstops and have also been complaining about the harsh ride of the xterra for while now and never Even thought it could be the bumpstops , think I will go pull mine today and see what happens . If it’s the problem maybe I will dig up a set of front bumpstops of a early Chevy ifs because they are softer if I remember right . 9B80DCE5-32C4-4113-96DB-4F6A20DA2901.png
 

General_Tarfun

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Location
Atlanta, GA
You know I put in the same bumpstops and have also been complaining about the harsh ride of the xterra for while now and never Even thought it could be the bumpstops , think I will go pull mine today and see what happens . If it’s the problem maybe I will dig up a set of front bumpstops of a early Chevy ifs because they are softer if I remember right .

It's worth a try since it only takes a few minutes to remove them. I don't know what your front end setup is but I've had them removed for a week or so now and the before/after difference is ridiculous.
 

Smileyshaun

Bought an X
It’s just stock struts with about 2” spacer , thought the 35s would help soften the ride a little bit I’m really hoping the bumpstops make a huge difference because that’s my only real complaint with the rig is the ride quality .
 

General_Tarfun

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Location
Atlanta, GA
It’s just stock struts with about 2” spacer , thought the 35s would help soften the ride a little bit I’m really hoping the bumpstops make a huge difference because that’s my only real complaint with the rig is the ride quality .

Weird, mine was pretty smooth with that particular setup. Are you getting any coil bucket contact with it?
 

General_Tarfun

Sliders
Location
Atlanta, GA
Should have taken some pictures but I had the day off and bought some Meguiar's ScratchX 2.0 to try on some nasty swirls I put in the paint when removing all that clay a few weeks ago. I was working by hand which sucked but after 3 applications followed by a polish almost all of the scratches are gone and the paint looks amazing.

I only had time for the front doors forward but I highly recommend that 2.0 stuff if you have any of those light scratches in the paint you want to remove.
 

General_Tarfun

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Location
Atlanta, GA
Caught up on a few projects today. Reinstalled the trimmed bump stops and since everything is closed here (except Harbor Freight!) I started playing with the radio bracket to see if there was a way to get the screen more horizontal without spending money. I can live with pretty much anything but that glare wore me down finally. It was easier to do than I expected and although the top of the radio sticks out more now I don't mind the tradeoff.

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General_Tarfun

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Location
Atlanta, GA
I've noticed some condensation build up in my front light bar over the past few months so I finally pulled it off to reseal it. It's never leaked for about two years (not bad for an ebay Auxbeam lightbar) but when I pulled the front plexiglass off I saw that they used a rubber gasket to seal it and the gasket had shrunk to the point where it tore in one spot letting water in. I pulled it apart and let it sit out for a night to dry out.

Also apparently at some point I put 'wipe-new' on the the plexiglass and it was pretty nasty looking. Very yellow and textured, definitely blocking light output. Turns out that Meguiars scratch-x 2.0 works really well on plexiglass too because it removed all of it after a few applications and really cleared the lens up nicely. I removed the rubber gasket on the front and cleaned everything up with denatured alcohol and used permatex ultra black to reseal everything and let it dry overnight. Should be all good now.

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General_Tarfun

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Location
Atlanta, GA
I finally figured out the problems I've been having that I thought was alignment related.

The front end felt like it was bottoming out over small bumps despite the fact that it should have had a ton of uptravel available. Steering has a ton of bump steer while braking over road imperfections. Hard impacts on turns cause the steering wheel to turn further into the direction of the turn, like the wheel coming off the ground for a second. Turns out that it is 'bottoming' via coil bind.


The Moog coil springs I used on my 2018 coil-over build sagged about an inch after a year. Normally that's not a problem but because cheap ass Moog coil springs have almost twice as many coils vs stock, eibach, etc. this sagging brought the coils even closer together so now they coil bind constantly. Braking causes nose dive, which compresses the coils even more, so driving over any road imperfection bind the coils and gives the bump steer since the truck is being shoved around by the lack of suspension. Impacts cause the same thing on turns, the wheel can't go up so it slams into coil bind causing the steering to go crazy.

The plan for now is to lower the 5100's from the 1" setting to the lowest one, I don't know how much extra space that will allow between the coils but I'm hoping it's enough to make the bind something I can live with until I get rid of the Moog trash for good. I ordered an 18mm strut nut socket last night and probably going to order a 3" spacer today to compensate for the preload lift reduction and not mess with my alignment that much.
 

General_Tarfun

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Location
Atlanta, GA
The strut nut socket came in yesterday now I'm just waiting on new top spacer and then I'm going to lower the coil springs on the 5100's. Looking at this thing now I'm not totally sure but I think that it wouldn't be too hard to make if you had a spare 18mm and a bench grinder.

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KC!

Bought an X
The strut nut socket came in yesterday now I'm just waiting on new top spacer and then I'm going to lower the coil springs on the 5100's. Looking at this thing now I'm not totally sure but I think that it wouldn't be too hard to make if you had a spare 18mm and a bench grinder.

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That's exactly that I thought you did lol
 

General_Tarfun

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Location
Atlanta, GA
Just placed an order for two OE front coil springs to replace the Moogs on my 5100's. Tried to buy local but the dealership didn't want to match courtesy parts + CP is running a 5% off special too so couldn't beat the price at $233 shipped.

Plan is set them at the lowest perch and use a 3" spacer to regain the lift height and HOPEFULLY be done with this crap. I know 100% you get what you pay for in this life but if time is money I've spent thousands trying to remedy the various moog problems over the past year. Thankfully this is the last piece of moog on the truck to replace.
 

General_Tarfun

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Location
Atlanta, GA
Looks like I'll be installing the new coils in Texas, the wait time was over a week just for them to arrive at Courtesy Parts. I called them this morning and the guy told me they were slammed with orders and have less staff to process them. Oh well, I guess I can survive one more trip out there on the moogs.
 

General_Tarfun

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Location
Atlanta, GA
I ordered some springs on Amazon that I thought would be good for the front wiper arms but when I went to install them I found that the factory springs are actually really strong to begin with. After a few attempts I figured out a way to use vice grips to tighten them up a bit, there's a secondary C clip that connects the spring to the arm base that can be shortened with a bit force.

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General_Tarfun

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Location
Atlanta, GA
Finally got the new coil springs in! Now just have to get them installed at some point. First thing I've already noticed aside from them being the correct shape is that they seem to weigh a lot less than the moog coils did, probably from the 8 coils vs the moog 10 coil version.

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IM1RU

Skid Plates
Supporting Member
Location
SLC, UT
Are your coil perches able to deal with non tapered ends?

From the pics it looks like what you have are tapered.
 

General_Tarfun

Sliders
Location
Atlanta, GA
Well the coil swap project failed miserably. The bottle jack method is way faster than the rent-a-tool clamp on compressors which was great. What wasn't great was that on the passenger side the snap ring had halfway failed and on the drivers side when I removed the coil the snap ring just fell off entirely.

Judging by the dirt in the grooves I think the passenger side might have been that way for a while now. The worst part is I thought about ordering replacement rings just in case but cheaped out and thought I could re-use them, now the truck will have to sit on jack stands while I wait for the new rings to show up. I just got back from a 2000 mile trip last night and I can't help but feel I really lucked out by not having one of those rings pop during it.

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General_Tarfun

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Location
Atlanta, GA
Bummer
I tend to have greater heartache when I decide to cheap out~

Same, I really thought the rings would have been ok though. I figured if there would be a breakage it would be when adjusting them vs just driving. Makes sense though, the force from the coil bind had to go somewhere and the snap ring is by far the weakest link on that assembly. I guess as a positive I was reading the fsm this morning for assembly info and found that I originally installed them facing the wrong way. The perch coil is supposed to be facing forward on the outer side.
 
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