If anyone has any opinions on what it should cost to get the following done, I'd greatly appreciate it:

* Installation of this Pitman and Idler Arm Support System on my H2 ( http://www.trailduty.com/products/cognito/index.html - Cognito says "Installation time is 45 minutes to an hour," but I don't know how accurate that is.);

* T-bars up in the range of 0.8 to 1.0 inches;

* Installation of this rear diff cover: http://www.trailduty.com/products/pml/index.html

* Realignment;

* Oil change w/ Mobil-1 and any normal required lubing.

Just want to know if I'm overpaying (I'd rather hear how much is fair before i prejudice any responses by telling hom much the estimate was).
Thanks in advance.

Don't pay for this. It'll take you 5-10 minutes to do it yourself. Jack up one side with stock jack, use a long handled wrench 4-5 turns, lower. Repeat on other side. Enjoy. Drive it for a few days (~50+ miles). Then get the cognitos and alignment done after it's all settled in.

Go Do Now!!

Cognitos? Don't know. I'm having mine done in the next couple days once I get my shipment from Trailduty [BTW, has anyone told you phil and trailduty rocks ] I'm friendly with them and they've done other stuff at great costs, so I'm hoping for something in the 50-100 range max. I'll let you know how I make out next week.

Realignment? 40-140 depending on where it's done for front end.

Don't pay for this. It'll take you 5-10 minutes to do it yourself. Jack up one side with stock jack, use a long handled wrench 4-5 turns, lower. Repeat on other side. Enjoy. Drive it for a few days (~50+ miles). Then get the cognitos and alignment done after it's all settled in.

Go Do Now!!

Cognitos? Don't know. I'm having mine done in the next couple days once I get my shipment from Trailduty [BTW, has anyone told you phil and trailduty rocks ] I'm friendly with them and they've done other stuff at great costs, so I'm hoping for something in the 50-100 range max. I'll let you know how I make out next week.

Realignment? 40-140 depending on where it's done for front end. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

The guys I talked to quoted me $500 for everything. I guess that's not too bad, especially considering some people are paying $1,400 for an oil change and tire rotation service.
The reason I was going to have them do the T-bars was just to make sure it is level and, if the allignment is out later, I will go back to them and ask for it to be redone. I realligned my Sierra right after the T-bars went up almost 2 inches. The allignment stayed good in that case (Or is that a safe assumption if it didn't pull?). If it does settle, how much off would the allignment likely be? Right now, i was just trying to get everything done before the Paragon trip.

Yes, I have heard of this Phil person. I wonder if he has any good wares to sell?

You could have a bad alignment and not experience pulling. For instance, too much inward toe will not result in pull. You may actually track better with extra in-toe. But it'll definitely wear your tires edges faster.

That's why I say do the torsion bars RIGHT NOW and drive it a bit especially on some rougher stuff even if it's only 10 miles. It's too easy to not do yourself. After I did mine earlier this week, I shook the truck around and then measured. Driver and passenger sides were level. After driving about 20 miles, passenger side is now sitting about .25 inches higher than driver side. I wouldn't think this would cause significant alignment issues, but better safe than sorry. Tires are expensive. If you do this, then you won't have to wonder whether they settled after the shop does it.

You could have a bad alignment and not experience pulling. For instance, too much inward toe will not result in pull. You may actually track better with extra in-toe. But it'll definitely wear your tires edges faster.

That's why I say do the torsion bars RIGHT NOW and drive it a bit especially on some rougher stuff even if it's only 10 miles. It's too easy to not do yourself. After I did mine earlier this week, I shook the truck around and then measured. Driver and passenger sides were level. After driving about 20 miles, passenger side is now sitting about .25 inches higher than driver side. I wouldn't think this would cause significant alignment issues, but better safe than sorry. Tires are expensive. If you do this, then you won't have to wonder whether they settled after the shop does it. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks for the advice. How much did you crank you bars?

5 turns on driver. 4 2/3 on passenger as that's all there was left to turn. The passenger is still higher so I'll be backing that down about a turn.

So I'm about as high as they can be and be level and my rockers are nearly level now. The ride is just great too; firm, but that's good.

Makes sense. I'm still on stock rubber. I'm 17.5 in back, 17.25" in front. Difference is in bigger tires and lift.


I luckily do not yet have much play in the center link wth 30K miles on the truck. I'm really hoping that the cognitos prevent it from worstening. Only time will tell. And I refuse to back the torsion bars now. The rake was severely bugging me.

Alright everyone, thanks for the good advice. I cancelled my rape appointment and rescheduled with the same guys who sold me my tires for Monday. They work at $75/hr. So even at 3 hours it would only be $225. We'll see. I just torqued my T-bars. I think I've heard on here that one complete bolt turn will raise the front end 0.2 inches. I turned each bolt four times and then checked where I was. Holy $#!%. I was pointing into the sky. I backed them down one full turn (for a total of three turns), and measured. I had lifted my front end just about an inch. I determined this by two means: My skid plate is now 12.25 inches off the ground instead of 11.25. The front wheel well is also one inch further above the front tires than the back ones are. See photo below.
Q #1: Is it possible that, on my truck, for some reason, one turn = 0.33 inches instead of 0.2 inches?
Q #2: Does my truck look too front-high in the photo? I.e., does it look wierd?

[Note photo up-loading error. I'll try again later - so forget Q #2 for now.]

Re Q1: I get about an inch out of 5 turns measuring to the front end of the rockers. So measuring before and after any farther forward is going to show a larger change as you're basically pivoting the frame up about the rear wheels/axles.

Here's a demonstration of the effect...look closely at the wheels to see how it rotates:


Re Q2: if you measure top of tire to fender, and get the same in front as in back then the truck is a bit nose down. So if you're level, yes, the front tire-to-flare spacing is larger.

D@mn Ree, that shifting photo thingy was cool.
Does that mean that my photos will now attach? We shall see.

Nope: "There was an FTP (file transfer) error. The detail is 'Upload to '/testdir/test.txt' failed. Detail: '552 Transfer aborted. Disk quota exceeded''."

Why can you, but not I?

H-2 comes with A reusable diff cover gasket, no need for rtv

Why can't I even post an insignificant 80K byte photo, and Ree gets to post the Hyper-Fancy Shifto Photos!?!?!?!?!?!?

There's also the big bug that appears unde the middle of the H2.

I just have my own off site storage for pictures that's completely unrelated to the elcova groupee. Then I link to the image there. No need to waste the storage here ... as long as I'm willing to keep my picture up on the other side for a long time. There should be just enough info there for you to figure it out if you really want to

As for the shifting. I don't know how that happened

After making the turns, you have to allow for "settling." Since you are adjusting for the torque that's being applied, even if you jacked the front up and then let it down, you would need to drive around the block or something and then measure to get an accurate measurement.

Don't depend on just making X turns and then measuring. Get close to where you think it should be, drive around the block and then come back and measure to see if it works. Then before you get the alignment double-check it.

Thanks guys. I've driven about 15 miles since I did it. I'm futilely going to try to find some level ground around here and remeasure and then, if necessary, tweak it a bit.
Seriously, I appreciate all your advice and saving me from the unnecessary departure of $300.

Update:

As of now, my front skid plate is about an inch higher than before. The front of the rockers are about 1/4" lower than the back of the rockers. Am I in the right ballpark as far as lifting without rearing out my front end?
Here's the frustrating part:
When sitting on "level" ground (there really isn't any such thing around here, but I get pretty level side-to-side), I've got it to where the wheel well height is the same on both sides. However, the passenger side rocker panels are about 1/4" higher. Why?? Tires have same PSI. This varies depending on where the truck is sitting. Any invariable slight cant to the pavement must make a difference. Once, I measured in one pretty-level spot, and the wheel well height was 1/16" greater on the driver side, and the passenger-side rocker was 1/4" higher. Then I moved it to another level spot, and the the wheel well height was 1/16" greater on the pasenger side - but the passenger-side rocker height was now only 1/8" inch greater. In other words moving to another spot gave me more hieght on one side above the tire, but less on the same side under the rocker.
It seems to me that, if one (as with me) cannot find the perfectly-level and flat slab, the wheel well spacing is more accurate because, as long as the front tires are planted at the same level, it should come out correct. Any curvature of the pavement, however, may affect the rocker measurement. Is that a fair assumtion? Any other advice on how I could do this with more NASA-like precision? I am a little worried that I turned the driver side bolt about two more turns than the passenger side bolt, and it's basically level now. Does that mean it wasn't level before? Am I too worried about it being perfect?

Should I just tweak it as well as possible, and just tell the allignment guys to allign? Or should I ask them to make sure it's level? Unfortunately, I have a lower degree of confidence that these $200 guys can do the level thingy on their own as opposed to the $500 guys.

Thanks Phil. The one thing that still has me baffled is that, if I level by measuring the wheel well height, the rockers are off. For instance the wheel well heights are now about even, but the rockers are off by 1/4". I assume that, if I levelled the rockers, the wheel well height would then be off by about 1/4". Which do I pick? I have the sides of the front bumpers pretty close. So, I assume the wheel well method is probably okay. But I'm just not sure which method is the most accurate.

Okay, I can't post photos, but, now that I'm basically level, I assume the jounce bumpers should look about the same.
However, the point on my passenger-side jounce bumber is touching the control arm about 1 inch inside of the mark where it came from the factory. The point on my driver-side jounce bumper is pointing just a tiny bit to the OUTSIDE of that mark and is about 1/2" above the control arm (there is a 1/2" gap). What does that mean? Sounds bad to me, but I'm just guessing.

I've already been informed by a couple of knowledgeable people on here that this is probabaly not a real big deal, and it seems even less so after 3 cabernets and 6 Bass Pale Ales, but for completeness sake, here's the two differing jounce bumpers:

Driver side:

Driver side:
Oh, never mind:

"Error
There was an FTP (file transfer) error. The detail is 'Upload to '/testdir/test.txt' failed. Detail: '552 Transfer aborted. Disk quota exceeded''."

I just posted a 69KB phto and five seconds later, I can't post a 49KB photo. Interesting.

At least on that last photo, you can see my bada$$ FT Tie Rod I got from TrailDuty!

FYI, I just had my cognitos installed and alignment done for $125. Time was ~100 minutes.