Lift question or two

[krejr]

I finally have some time to finish my lift, today and tomorrow. I haven't really done much to the left rear of my GW yet regarding the lift except to remove the u-bolts.
My question is, how do you access the nut on the front of the left rear leaf spring? The bolt appears to go into the frame, but I cannot see the nut. Do I have to remove the gas tank, or can I just remove some of the sheet metal from around the tank to access the nut?
Another question: The rear leafs have this wedge piece on the bottom that will rest against the supplied block (for the 6" lift). I have the right rear leaf installed with the same orientation as the original leaf, but the wedge points towards the back of the vehicle. Brent at BJ's told me that the block wedge needs to point towards the front of the vehicle. Does the leaf wedge also need to point towards the front of the vehicle? It looks like it should, to give the driveshaft a better angle, but I just wanted to get some advice before I rotated the leaf wedge 180 degrees. If anyone can help, I would appreciate it. I'm tearing back into my lift later this afternoon after I get back from the in-laws.
Thanks in advance! [img]smile.gif[/img]

[SpruceMoose]

the nut in question is a captive one. hopefully. you should not have to get to it, unless it has broken loose. on mine, it came apart fine, but i could not get the bolt to engage the threads again. so i cheated. i tapped the bolt home, and it is being held in place with a short length of steel channel. the bolt is in double shear, so there is nothing to force it out, and the channel is strong enough to keep it in place if there is any reasonable amount of side loading on the bolt. over a year so far, no problems.

as for the angled shims, just remember: the input to the axle has to be aimed at the output of the transfer case. tilt the front end of the rear axle up.

gotta run. good luck!

sm.

[billyrb]

The wedge needs to have the smaller end towards the front and the fat end towards the back. You can use a hammer to gently rotate it.

[krejr]

Thanks for the info guys. I rotated the wedges around with no problem. After dropping the entire back axle, I was able to get the blocks to line up much easier.
I'm having the same difficulty with my front bolt and the captive nut now. It came out without breaking the weld, but I can't get the threads to line up yet on the reinsertion. I've spent about 30 minutes on it with a jack under the leaf to try to raise, lower, etc. just a little at a time to look for that sweet spot where the bolt meets the threads. No luck so far. I'll try again this morning.

[krejr]

Well, I'm nearly complete. I have to just bleed the brakes and it's drivable again! 5-8 hours, yeah right.


I do have some information that may make the left rear spring easier for anyone doing their own lift.
The captive nut is likely to break the weld if you have rust like I did. I used PB Blaster on it and whacked it with a hammer. Waited an hour or two and did the same thing. I then gave it a 1/4 turn, then more PB and another whack. After another 1/4 turn, the bolt just backed right out easily. Once everything was out, the difficult part came: Trying to get the new bolt to find the threads of the captive nut. I spent nearly 1.5 hours the first day, and about 45 minutes the next day trying to get this $%&^# bolt to find the threads. Well, here's what I did and after I did it, a few minutes later, the bolt was threading into the captive nut. First take a grinder and champfer the tip of the bolt a little to give it a bit of a point. Not too much, maybe 1 - 2 threads. Next I attached a short 2x4 perpendicular to the leaf spring with a couple of C-clamps. I had the wratchet on the bolt and my other hand on the end of the 2x4. I rocked the 2x4 up and down while simultaneously trying to wratchet the bolt. After about 30 seconds, bam, the bolt started threading. I wish I would've thought of this a couple of days ago. Anyway, it worked for me and I hope that I can save someone a little time when they do their lift.