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.