Billysgoat
The ANTI-BLING!
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2006
- Messages
- 10,694
This past weekend I made the 6 hour drive to Steele, AL for the CompD Invitational, just another 6 hours of the truck jerking and janking all over the road. I knew the tracbar was flat gone, the Dodge death wobble had set in :bang Just before I left town though the good folks with UPS dropped me off a little present from Source Automotive, one Solid Steel Industries 3rd Gen tracbar mount :rockwoot: So being of the mind that one parking lot will work as good as another it and the tracbar I had previously purchased went in the truck for the ride to Steele.
On Friday we all got to the track well before noon to help vendors through the gates etc. Tim (Timbeaux) had starter issues he kept whining about so i finally told him to shut up and find one, by the time he did the old one would be off. Change into a get greasy shirt and go to work. Got his starter off and thought, "Well heck, already dirty, let's get a little dirtier". Get out some more tools and go to town on a tracbar swap.
Word of advice, if you do this in a parking lot 350 miles from home, make certain the pickle fork is in the TRUCK toolbox, NOT the other toolbox sitting at home :bang Had the pickle fork been to hand this would have taken no more than 2 hours tops. As it was a splitting wedge and a prybar made due for removal of the old tracbar. Once it was off the SSI mount went on very smoothly, just be sure to install the cross bolt into the tracbar BEFORE torquing everything down. The mount will flex and make line up impossible. Once my arse catches up with my head I'll do a tech article on installing it with more tips and details.
After the install I headed back to the hotel for a needed shower, all I could think was "WOW!". It made that big of a difference, my truck went from having to be driven every last second and hard to hold in a rutted curve to a one finger or knee drivable truck. It's back to being a pleasure to drive rather than a chore. Rides better, drives 2 bazillion times better, and is quieter to boot! (No clunking noise LOL ).
If you have ever thought about doing this, or a similar type of tracbar replacement quit thinking and do it, well worth the $$$.
On Friday we all got to the track well before noon to help vendors through the gates etc. Tim (Timbeaux) had starter issues he kept whining about so i finally told him to shut up and find one, by the time he did the old one would be off. Change into a get greasy shirt and go to work. Got his starter off and thought, "Well heck, already dirty, let's get a little dirtier". Get out some more tools and go to town on a tracbar swap.
Word of advice, if you do this in a parking lot 350 miles from home, make certain the pickle fork is in the TRUCK toolbox, NOT the other toolbox sitting at home :bang Had the pickle fork been to hand this would have taken no more than 2 hours tops. As it was a splitting wedge and a prybar made due for removal of the old tracbar. Once it was off the SSI mount went on very smoothly, just be sure to install the cross bolt into the tracbar BEFORE torquing everything down. The mount will flex and make line up impossible. Once my arse catches up with my head I'll do a tech article on installing it with more tips and details.
After the install I headed back to the hotel for a needed shower, all I could think was "WOW!". It made that big of a difference, my truck went from having to be driven every last second and hard to hold in a rutted curve to a one finger or knee drivable truck. It's back to being a pleasure to drive rather than a chore. Rides better, drives 2 bazillion times better, and is quieter to boot! (No clunking noise LOL ).
If you have ever thought about doing this, or a similar type of tracbar replacement quit thinking and do it, well worth the $$$.
