Damn.. No one has been on the Avy forums for a while. Time to post up. I've been lurking and busy with other projects. The Mustang, car detailing on the side, moving, a few break downs on the AVY. Finally sitting at work bored so I figured it's time to post up.
Sort after my Colorado trip the front end starting squeaking worse then a teen age girl. So after getting a ridiculous quote from a shop to repair it (they diagnosed it as upper control arm bushings) I decided to do EVERYTHING at once. So I placed an order for a few parts
-Moog Upper control arms
-Moog outer tie rods
(I used Moog as they have grease zerk fittings)
-OEM GM aluminum lower control arms with bushings and a ball joint (time saver.. didn't feel like pressing the old ball joint out)
-OEM GM sway bar bushings
-OEM GM sway bar end links
-NEW drive axles (one was replaced pre Colorado.. did the other one)
The one and only snag I ran into is that with my awesome brute force I snapped BOTH forward upper control arm bolts. Okay they were frozen inside the shaft of the OEM UCA and just sheared off. Some grade 8 bolts were used as a temporary fixed while I ordered replacements thru my local dealership.
Now lets fast forward to end of May / early June. All of a sudden I am developing some weird ass vibration thats coming from the front. My first logical thought, wheel hubs. So of course I run to the store and order up some brand new MOOG wheel hubs
Glad I did cause this is what I found when I removed the old one - a burnt thru and overheated ABS line which tells me the hub was running hot.
HOWEVER.. That did not fix my vibration or noise. At this point I have new hubs and new cv joints. I craw under the car and notice one of the cv joints has grease splatter on time. Oh oh.. it's new (under lifetime warranty). I also noticed the inner axle stub shaft (drivers side) is wobbling around like crazy. After placing a few calls to some driveline shops, I have found out that these 9.25 GM IFS units are prone to failure and mine is probably starting to fail. Out it came
It actually took about an hour to remove and I was surprised how easy it was. It was also an hour to install and with two jacks it's a one man job. My turn around time was 2 days at the shop and $600. It was fully rebuilt with all new bearings, seals, etc. The ring and pinion was fine as I caught it in time. What failed was the adjuster on the drivers side the locks the gear in place and adjusts the play. Basically the ring gear and carrier were starting to wobble around inside the case. Here's how much crap was inside the oil when I remove the drain plug
So as it stands now, my entire front end is completely rebuild other then the driveshaft u joints. Hell I'm thinking about doing those just for good measure.
Oh and in case anyone is wondering. No humming... no nose... no vibrations... I'm one happy camper now.
