Growing up doesn't have to suck

[Sam Harris]

Oh, as for my exhaust plans- I originally wanted the cutout/unmuffled circuit to merge back into the pipe after the muffled circuit and continue over the axle and out the back. Materials and space constraints prevented this, so I just dumped it in front of the axle. Since I now know that the cutout is contributing to the noise, and it's exiting under the cabin, I'm gonna work on getting it tied in and out the back as originally planned, in hopes that this makes it quiet enough inside the cabin. I want the cutout pipe to be as free-flowing as possible, so it can't be necking down into a smaller pipe. Since my Tahoe is lowered, I can't afford to have the over-axle arch any larger than the factory 2.75". Really, I'd like to get a shorter, but wider (oval) pipe for even more clearance. I could simply get a 3" U-bend and hammer the bottom and/or top side(s) to make it 2.75" or less. But, such a pipe is about $30 on Amazon.

I was passing through New Orleans yesterday for work, so I checked FB Marketplace (I use Jenn's account) for take-off exhaust pipes. It didn't take long at all for me to find an ad for a factory '06 LLY exhaust, complete with muffler. It included the factory air intake and filter assembly, all for $50 or best offer. I met up with the guy and, since I had no use for the intake, he offered the exhaust to me for $30. Score! So, now I have plenty of nice quality 3.5" tubing with more bends than I'll ever need. I was even considering using the muffler since I thought mine weren't sufficient, but now I'll try to sell, trade or give it away. Since the pipe is 3.5", I can beat it down to ~2.5" or so high and it'll still flow as well as a 3" pipe.


Pic from seller's ad. I even got the 3.5" band clamp:

View attachment 257448

Heck yeah! Good deal! Looking forward to more pics of the progress! And maybe even some video... [emoji16][emoji106][emoji631]

 

[iamdub]

Yyyyyuuuuuuup. It was exactly what I suspected.


That upper stud broke:

It was intermittently getting wedged between the rotor and heads of the lug studs as it bounced and rolled around:

Put a few marks on the backside of the rotor. Nothing detrimental:

"Fortunately, I keep my feathers numbered for, for just such an emergency"

I bought these spindles used and the studs were broken when they were removed since they're installed with Loctite. I was able to get the remains out fairly easily with Vise Grips after heating the spindle around them. I bought new hardware plus an extra just in case. Well, "in case" happened.

 

[wjburken]

Yyyyyuuuuuuup. It was exactly what I suspected.


That upper stud broke:

View attachment 257513


It was intermittently getting wedged between the rotor and heads of the lug studs as it bounced and rolled around:

View attachment 257510


Put a few marks on the backside of the rotor. Nothing detrimental:

View attachment 257511

"Fortunately, I keep my feathers numbered for, for just such an emergency"

View attachment 257512

I bought these spindles used and the studs were broken when they were removed since they're installed with Loctite. I was able to get the remains out fairly easily with Vise Grips after heating the spindle around them. I bought new hardware plus an extra just in case. Well, "in case" happened.

Luck favors the prepared.

 

[kbuskill]

Yyyyyuuuuuuup. It was exactly what I suspected.


That upper stud broke:

View attachment 257513


It was intermittently getting wedged between the rotor and heads of the lug studs as it bounced and rolled around:

View attachment 257510


Put a few marks on the backside of the rotor. Nothing detrimental:

View attachment 257511

"Fortunately, I keep my feathers numbered for, for just such an emergency"

View attachment 257512

I bought these spindles used and the studs were broken when they were removed since they're installed with Loctite. I was able to get the remains out fairly easily with Vise Grips after heating the spindle around them. I bought new hardware plus an extra just in case. Well, "in case" happened.

Why do you have a stud there instead of a bolt?

My Belltech spindles just reuse the factory bolts.

 

[iamdub]

I installed them the first time per McGaughy's specs, but didn't document any of it. So, this post will serve to do so. Well, at last half of it, so it's probably all void, but, whatever. I don't see how one could use a torque wrench on the nut. So, I went by feel by a fairly trained arm. If these things are so sensitive as to requiring being torqued to 75 ft-lbs with no or extremely little variance, then it's a crap design. I guess I could've stuck my wrench on there and hung 75 pounds of weight on it exactly 12" from the center of the stud, buuuut...


Used my lightly-used, always-returned-to-zero, always-wiped-clean-after-use, never-dropped-or-handled-roughly, never-pulled-past-clicking and calibration-checked-and-certified-by-reputable-independent-lab Matco torque wrench:

Set to 25 foot pounds:

Adapters used to convert from 1/2" drive to 6mm hex drive:

...And torqued slowly and smoothly to 25 ft. lbs. with blue Loctite. McGaughy's instructions just said to install with "Loctite" (actually says "LOCKTITE"), but didn't specify red or blue. I chose to use a lightly excessive amount of blue:

This happens once. If it happens again, I'm switching to Belltech spindles.

 

[07Burb]

Yyyyyuuuuuuup. It was exactly what I suspected.


That upper stud broke:

View attachment 257513


It was intermittently getting wedged between the rotor and heads of the lug studs as it bounced and rolled around:

View attachment 257510


Put a few marks on the backside of the rotor. Nothing detrimental:

View attachment 257511

"Fortunately, I keep my feathers numbered for, for just such an emergency"

View attachment 257512

I bought these spindles used and the studs were broken when they were removed since they're installed with Loctite. I was able to get the remains out fairly easily with Vise Grips after heating the spindle around them. I bought new hardware plus an extra just in case. Well, "in case" happened.

Not even sure how that would happen

 

[iamdub]

Why do you have a stud there instead of a bolt?

My Belltech spindles just reuse the factory bolts.

The top bolt interferes with the upper ball joint stud and nut and this was McG's solution. I don't know why they didn't just do the same as Belltech. I'll have to look at the back side to see if there's any good reason. Maybe they have the upper ball joint boss positioned lower to help with alignment? There's something goin on with that since BT makes two different spindles- one is for just the 2" drop from the spindles and another has modified geometry to be used with lowering springs, struts, relocators, arms etc. to help with alignment.

Unless I see something that dictates otherwise, I have half a mind to drill the spindle to use that third bolt from the backside. The existing threaded hole is a perfect pilot hole.

 

[kbuskill]

I installed them the first time per McGaughy's specs, but didn't document any of it. So, this post will serve to do so. Well, at last half of it, so it's probably all void, but, whatever. I don't see how one could use a torque wrench on the nut. So, I went by feel by a fairly trained arm. If these things are so sensitive as to requiring being torqued to 75 ft-lbs with no or extremely little variance, then it's a crap design. I guess I could've stuck my wrench on there and hung 75 pounds of weight on it exactly 12" from the center of the stud, buuuut...


Used my lightly-used, always-returned-to-zero, always-wiped-clean-after-use, never-dropped-or-handled-roughly, never-pulled-past-clicking and calibration-checked-and-certified-by-reputable-independent-lab Matco torque wrench:

View attachment 257514

Set to 25 foot pounds:

View attachment 257515


Adapters used to convert from 1/2" drive to 6mm hex drive:

View attachment 257516

...And torqued slowly and smoothly to 25 ft. lbs. with blue Loctite. McGaughy's instructions just said to install with "Loctite" (actually says "LOCKTITE"), but didn't specify red or blue. I chose to use a lightly excessive amount of blue:

View attachment 257517




This happens once. If it happens again, I'm switching to Belltech spindles.

Weird, all 3 of my bolts go in from the back side like the factory.

 

[iamdub]

Not even sure how that would happen

Same here. Could've just been a defective stud. It makes sense to me to tighten the bottom bolts first so they do most of the locating, then tighten the nut on the stud, so that's what I did. The hub sits inside of that hole in the spindle, so that supports most of the weight, just like the lip inside the bore of the wheel does most of the centering/locating rather than the lug studs.

If it can't withstand my driving, then it doesn't belong on my vehicle.

 

[iamdub]

Looked at the backside of the spindle:

That whole area is much too beefy to use a bolt. Maybe that upper ball joint boss is relatively lower than where it is on the Belltech? I don't know and I'm not much concerned.


On another note, I finally remembered to measure how much drop these things actually give. Measuring from the top surface of where the lower ball joint stud goes in, up to the center of the frontmost hub bolt (this was the easiest place to fit my tape measure), I got 5.125". Measuring the stock spindle at the same location, I got 3.375". This is a 1.75" difference- exactly what I measured when I dropped it.


Anyone with some Belltech spindles, preferably model #2511, care to measure theirs?

Here's where I measured (edited interweb pic):

I butted the end of my tape measure to the top of that lower ball joint surface and went straight up to the center of that hub bolt hole (or center of the bolt head).

 

[swathdiver]

Same here. Could've just been a defective stud. It makes sense to me to tighten the bottom bolts first so they do most of the locating, then tighten the nut on the stud, so that's what I did. The hub sits inside of that hole in the spindle, so that supports most of the weight, just like the lip inside the bore of the wheel does most of the centering/locating rather than the lug studs.

If it can't withstand my driving, then it doesn't belong on my vehicle.

If that was a factory bolt, it would be torqued to 133 foot pounds. 75 seems awfully little.

 

[iamdub]

The curiosity was eating at me:

Belltech was able to have that top bolt fit because they made their spindle about 1.25" taller overall. Obviously, this affects the ball joint angle(s). I know GM was stroking McG for their design years ago, and I believe this was because they maintained (most of?) the factory geometries. Maybe the spindle height/ball joint angle thing was the kicker.

Now I'm wondering if the newer Belltech spindle, the 2511, has modified mounting bosses for the ball joints to alleviate the angles when lowered beyond the 2" (alleged) from the spindle.

 

[iamdub]

If that was a factory bolt, it would be torqued to 133 foot pounds. 75 seems awfully little.

Correct. And I torqued those bottom two bolts to 133 ft.-lbs.

The top is a stud that doesn't thread into the hub, it just clamps it to the spindle, so it doesn't need a lot of torque. It's like a lug stud on a small car- you only need to torque it to pinch the wheel between the lug nut and the hub flange. According to a chart on Tirerack, a 12mm lug stud has a typical torque range of 70-80 ft.-lbs. A few performance-oriented sites showed 85 ft.-lbs., +/- 5 ft.-lbs. Also, unlike lug studs, this one is in a relatively static environment.

 

[swathdiver]

Correct. ...Also, unlike lug studs, this one is in a relatively static environment.

Yeah, static...

 

[wjburken]

Yeah, static...

Just watched that movie last weekend.

 

[Onebad1983]

I don't recall you ever mentioning this. I may or may not have to spy on your thread more...

Tbh I don't post as much as I should on my thread. I don't think I did ever mention this tbh. What's your LSA?

 

[Tonyrodz]

Yeah, static...

Love that movie!

 

[iamdub]

Tbh I don't post as much as I should on my thread. I don't think I did ever mention this tbh. What's your LSA?

114. If I had ordered the cam new, I likely would've went with the 112. But, this was a $100 hook-up, so I can't complain! Also, I'd like to boost this thing a little, so the 114 LSA would be more appropriate.

 

[Onebad1983]

114. If I had ordered the cam new, I likely would've went with the 112. But, this was a $100 hook-up, so I can't complain! Also, I'd like to boost this thing a little, so the 114 LSA would be more appropriate.

Mine is 112

 

[iamdub]

Mine is 112

Looking forward to the videos!