Unavailable, Replacement, Missing And Dirty Parts

I spent a lot of time this week prepping the hardware I need for the front end install and trying to find replacement parts for items I had not planned on. 

Here is the bag of front end hardware. It contains the castle nuts, the old tie rod boots, the washer-style seal for the center link, and the dust boot for the idler arm. 

I had already ordered replacement tie rod dust boots from Energy Suspension.

Here they are installed.

Energy Suspension does not have replacements for the idler arm dust boot and the two washer-style seals for the center link.

I spent the better part of Thursday evening looking for a replacement dust boot and the seals I need for the center link. No one has them. I could not find them online and I could not find them anywhere around town. I decided to get creative and got some 1/8" thick rubber washers from Mac's Hardware and enlarged the center hole to match the original washer seal. Here are the two seals I made in place on the center link.

Since I could not find a replacement dust boot for the idler arm I decided to reuse the original. The rubber is still soft and after being cleaned up, looks fine.

I finished making the rubber insulators for the fuel sending unit lines. I have two drilled out at 3/8", one at 5/16" and one at 1/4". Each have a slit in the side to allow the rubber to open up.

Here are the lines as they come over the edge of the fuel tank.

Here are the lines after the rubber insulators were installed. You can only see one in this picture. The others are on top of the fuel tank. The lines no longer make any noise as they hit the fuel tank and are held firmly in place.

I cleaned all the steering linkage hardware with the wire wheel and gave it the same WD-40 treatment we have been doing with all the rest of the hardware. Here I have the tie rods and center link laid in position.

Cary came over to help me this afternoon shortly after I discovered that I had not cleaned or painted the bracket for the steering gear box. This is the bracket the sway bar mounts to as well. This bracket needs to be installed before the sway bar can go on. I also discovered that I did not have or could not find the bolts for the tie rod sleeves. I looked through all of our labeled bags and could not find them. Dad came over to see how we were doing, just as we were talking about going to Mac's Hardware to see if we could find replacement bolts. Dad was sure that we could and even had an idea of what to look for. The three of us jumped in the car and went to Mac's. Here are the bolts and lock nuts we bought at Mac's.

When we got back from Mac's, Cary scrubbed on the steering gear box bracket with a wire brush.

I had located the idler arm mounting bolts and used the wire wheel to clean these up.

When Cary finished scrubbing on the steering gear box bracket with a wire brush, he cleaned it with MarineClean.

Once clean, he treated it with Prep and Ready.

Here's the cleaned and prepped steering gear box bracket.

I didn't like the surprise of finding the steering gear box bracket mixed in with our various hardware, so tomorrow I plan to go through the rest of the hardware and locate anything else that may need to be painted prior to install. We needed to find a place to store this stuff so it makes sense the smaller stuff was put in with the various hardware. I just need to take the time to look through it now so I can paint everything in one batch.

I contacted Bob at Fine Lines this afternoon to inquire about the fuel line that was supposed to be shipped out last week. It turns out it was overlooked and the line was still sitting in the shop. Bob got it shipped out today and sent me a tracking number.

I also contacted Billy at Knight Designs. He said he was actually going to text me today because he had just pulled my front nose out of the mold. Tomorrow morning he plans to trim, sand, and apply primer. He was not happy with the way the rear stone guards came out and is planning to redo his mold. He said if he does not have them ready by the end of the week, he will ship the nose by itself. I told him I didn't think there was that big of hurry if he wanted to just wait and ship them together. I am really excited to see the front nose!