Well, I worked all day and have managed to get almost everything torn off the front and back that is going to be replaced. I ended up drilling out the cotter pin on that side. The one of the other side came out pretty easy. The torsion bar FINALLY broke loose after I heated it up until the whole assembly was smoking, then I hit it hard with a hammer a few times, and hit it with the impact wrench and it came off. When I would use the breaker bar, it was actually stuck so bad that it would turn the whole "half circle" seat piece out of the seat!
I can tell you that those two things ended up being the LEAST of my problems, though! The ball joints were both seized on the knuckle and I ended up tearing the boots on them. Also, the rear shocks were a son of a B to get off. How did Isuzu expect ANYONE to get to those top nuts?! I ended up cutting them off with the sawzall through the little seem on the wheel well! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/shiner.gif" alt="" /> Oh, and I also cut the driver's side spring in half with my angle grinder because I couldn't get the rear to drop far enough to get it out because the upper link would just rest on the gas tank, but you had to get the spring out of the way to disconnect the upper link! As an engineer, I just can't see why Isuzu allowed a vehicle to make it to mass production that is so un-user friendly to work on! Besides, the idea of your "articulation limiter" being your gas tank skid plate is kind of rediculous.
At any rate, I fought all day with it and am not as far along as I was hoping, but after getting into it, I am farther along than I thought I would be! I'm pretty excited about tomorrow, though. I am set to pretty much just start putting the lift on and putting the vehicle back together. Ieven managed to get new ball joints ready to pick up tomorros and already had my fulcrum pins pressed into the new UCA's. I'm expecting things to go fairly smoothly tomorrow with the exception of the brakes, drivers side upper link, and actually getting the UCA's installed again with all the shims back in place. Still yet, I'm excited and everyone that has helped and that I have talked to the last couple of days (I've been to Advance about 8 times over the last day or so!) are ready to see the end results. I'm starting to think I might actually get this thing put back together in time for work Monday! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />
