Northern Virginia Roll Call

Appreciate the info on that, I suspect I will get the same thing. I will take mine probably across the street to the ghetto sunocco by me.

Coot

 

Like @Casper66 said. It depends on what you want to do with your lift. Im planning some stuff later and am going to need it. Im driving right now, but I'll chime in later

 

depending on where you bought it and how i would go to a dealer and get them to check your vin and see if any service records and make sure that's either up to date or if they have none depending on the miles perhaps have all the fluids changed and check any other service items. preventative maintenance first

 

I would suggest replace upper control arms with a uniball upper and gets rid of having an upper ball joint. Total chaos or camburg is fine. May want to upgrade suspension components if you already wanted to lift it, but it all depends on what your price range is. OME makes a good kit if you are on a budget or go all out and go with kings, fox or icon which also make different kits

 

If you want a budget lift, ill be selling my OME kit soon. You will just need to look into AAL or a full leaf pack. My OME stuff only has about 8k on it

 

the question was what do i need to do for safety and logevity. all the lift advice is great and rt but that wasn't the question at least as i understood it

 

That's why I suggested a uniball UCA which should outlast a ball joint, but while doing that might as well should lift it and replace any bad suspension components depending it if needs it.

 

I wouldn't mind doing a wrenching meet if @Choco_Taco or anyone else needs help.

 

I'm gonna need to work on my rear soon, so I'm up for some help

 

I am up for helping out....a great time to learn too! As my kids school is getting ready to start, and we are going to host a foreign exchange student for the school year, my calendar is filling up but Saturday afternoons and Sundays seem to be the days I can pitch in. If it's during the week...forget it!

 

How many miles on it? Oil and air filter changes are probably a given that most people do those routinely. I would change front and rear diff fluids (front if 4wd, of course, and transfer case), if its a manual transmission, fluid changes are easy on those. Never done an auto, but I have read it can be a little harder to do. Also look at fluids under the hood. Brake fluid, power steering fluid, coolant all may need changing. For brake fluid it is easiest to do at your next brake job, that way all the old fluid can be bled out through the lines and refilled with fresh. I would also check the thickness of brake pads to see if they are needing changing soon. Check belts and hoses. My serpentine belt squeals at startup with 70k, just got my new one earlier this week so it will go on soon as I get some time and its not 100+ degrees in my garage.
Also another big one that many people forget, grease the zerks on the driveline. Mine has three on the rear drive shaft, and two (annoyingly hard to get to) on the front.
Check tire pressures and look for abnormal wear. If there is, it could just be the pressure is wrong, or could need alignment, or suspension could be out of whack causing uneven wear. You can also check front end for too much play in the wheel bearings, that is an indicator they could be going bad.
The easiest thing to do would be to look up the maintenance schedule in the owners manual, start from the beginning, and check everything up to the point of the mileage you are at now. If it looks like it needs to be done, you are not sure, or you know it hasn't been done, I would do it. Better safe than sorry. A lot of people think changing oil (and maybe air filter) is all that needs done on a vehicle.

 

Seriously all great points though. When I bought it, I knew the lady that took care of it for an older gentleman. When he passed away she was the executor of his will. All the scheduled maintenance was done on it, and it has just under 60K miles on it. I also took it to a buddy of mine who is a mechanic and has his own shop (finally) in Virginia Beach, and he gave the thumbs up after replacing both front brake pads and rotors; fluids were all good, hoses and belts were good. I have no idea was a "zerk" is. The alignment pulls a bit to the left, so I have to get that done. Thanks for the tip about just starting from the schedule and working up from that. I will definitely do that! I guess like most things it's just something I will need to get under and start going through everything, slow and steady.

 

If you are almost at 60k, that will be a great time to change all your fluids. I do mine every 30k except for the coolant and brake fluid. Brake fluid I did at 60 and coolant I just had the dealer do (not a fan of messing with coolant). A zerk is a fitting on the drive shaft that you attach a grease gun to. It provides lubrication for the joint (I cant think of the proper term, too early) of the drive shaft. If you have a grease gun its a simple procedure of attaching, pumping till its full, and moving to the next one.

 

If you need any help just give a shout. Lots of locals that would be happy to help and would likely save you hundreds with DIY vs having it done.

 

For the zerks: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/grease-your-zerks.90957/#post-1731459

 

grease fitting

 

I downloaded the CarFax app on my phone. It alerts when you have recalls and helps track your maintenance schedule.

When you do maintenance or any other repair you can add that onto your carfax history report so the next owner (if any) has a complete history of the maintenance record

 

great and very handy idea

 

Uniballs on average have about 25% of the life span of a ball joint. They are actually a lot more involved for maintenance needs then a ball joint ever thought about being.

Not being a jerk, just trying to make sure those who don't know won't end up misinformed.

 

I was under the wrong impression. Thanks