bartonmd wrote:Just as an aside, since this is a "GMT" thread not a "TB" thread... The Pitman arm on the Chevy trucks might be the biggest PITA job I've ever done on anything. Where do you want the main shaft of the steering box to point, to make it really easy to work on? That's right, 3" away, directly at the front IFS crossmember that's welded in, and right behind the anti-roll bar. You're supposed to remove the steering box from the vehicle to do this job, but that would mean bleeding lines and having to find some place to get like 300ft/lbs on the nut. Got the nut off with a pipe wrench and a 3ft cheater bar, unbolted the box and moved it to a different hole (put the lower mounting ear in the top mounting hole), cut the pitman arm off with a die grinder when my pitman arm puller broke, while pulling on it with a universal disconnect tool, used an impact to get the new arm most of the way on, re-mounted it its home, and put the last turn and a half on it with the same pipe wrench and 3ft cheater bar.
Idler arm mount, idler arm, pitman arm, and steering damper took me 8 hours to do.
The fuel pump I did in the morning took me a little over an hour, because of being able to just jack up the bed and not move the tank.
Mike
Tell me about it. I took the steering gear box out to do mine. Three bolts and 2 lines. Wiggled the gear box out with pitman still on it. My weak-ass electric impact wouldn't do squat with the puller. I took it down to my neighbors shop to borrow a real pneumatic impact. A couple burps and it came right off, and same thing to put the new one on. Completely worth the 10 minute trip down to his shop. Saved a lot of ball breaking.
When I did the same job on my truck in the spring, the idler arm and bracket and steering stabilizer went pretty quick compared to the pitman.
But to be fair, I spend 12 hours doing lower ball joints at the end of May.
