87.5ea82txt

I got a rebuilt one from partsgeek for $50 after the core charge. Not sure if they will ship to where you are, but is the best deal I have found.

I had to sand the paint off the outside edges of the tabs to make the pads fit with the clips. I have held glazed pads against the side of a rotating chop saw blade in the past to resurface them. Works great.

More height would be nice, but if I went with larger blocks I would need to drop other things and I would have to lose or modify the sway bars. I like the idea of some 14" truck rims and a set of semi agressive tires 26" or smaller at a decent price if there is such a thing. I would feel more comfortable drilling out some rims so I can switch back to stock easily. Southern illinois is flat so it just has to be good in the mud and in deep snow in the winter.

Also, I would recomend drilling only half through the rivet. Use a sharp awl or punch to make a dimple in the center of the head. Drill into the shank with a bit that is just small enough that you dont drill into the hole. Hammer your punch into the rivet. If It has not already popped the back out of the rivet, pry the head of the rivet off, remove it from your punch, insert the punch back into the rivet and knock it out.

I know my advice sounds like poor advice, but trust me, leave the torque wrench in the drawer on this one. All you need is a 2ft breaker bar, a pry bar, a friend, and two nuts on the the lugs so your shakey friend with the pry bar doesn't screw up the threads on the lugs. Turn till you can't turn any more. Take the socket off the lug. Bet me the holes aren't perfectly lined up. Unless, your friend is sasquatch with superhuman streangth, you can't screw this up.

I just did the rear discs on my car the other day. I would get it as tight as you can with a good size bar and line the holes up. If you dont think you can turn it to the next hole you are done.

Or use a hammer to drive the rivet through if you have not drilled all the way through it. This will also knock off the head.

Insert a punch the same size diameter of the hole you drilled in the rivet and snap off the head. I've done this 1xxx's of times on aircraft.

before.... .....and with the brembos My commute to work The car

What kind of grease should I use for the axle bearings? there is a boot on the outer front that just needs graesed and clamped back on. Oh, and she sees lots of muddy creek laden dirt roads on my commute to work, so those last few thousand miles were harsh. That, and that rear left axle has been making clicking noises when making sharp turns with the diff locked. So that's why I'm replacing it with the $50 rebuit unit that I also got from partsgeek. (I was pulling gravel out of that rear inner cup.)

Funny you mention that. I was just messing with the headlights the other day, trying to level them after putting the 2'' lift on her. I had to push on the light and turn the screw at the same time to keep from bending the bracket. I put some new brembo discs on the rear, $25 each @ partsgeek. It says in the manual to disconnect the lower strut mount and inner arm to get the clearance to remove the axle, but dropping the diff sounds easier than breaking the suspension parts loose. I have had no such luck with those bolts. I've been driving her around the last few days with no pin in the cup. This sounds like a dumb question, but say it does magically come loose, do I risk the chance of the axle falling off and flailing violently under the car, or is it just going to slide back and forth on the shaft?

I suggested the use of heat, but my dad seemed to think that would result in cooked oil seals in the rear end. So heat won't hurt it? Are we talking a light even heat from a propane torch, or get the cup glowing with a cutting torch?

I've removed the front axles on my 87.5 XT in the past to replace the boots with no problems. The left rear however has been without a boot for the past 6k miles as I have not been able to get the axle to slide off the shaft with me prying with a 4' pry bar and my dad beating the crap out of it with a BFH. I just received a rebuilt axle and would like to hear what others have done to remove 20+ year old frozen axles.

This is what she looks like with front and rear '90 2WD xt suspension with KYB struts and a 1 1/4 inch lift on the front. I very well could have went with the 2" lift for a more level lift. I would suggest that anyone wanting to lift their EA82 without the rear torsion bar to either use 2WD struts or use the single block in the rear. The handling feels quite a bit looser and she does seem to do a bit more bobbing when I weave. I would like to find some stiffer springs as I feel that would help quite a bit in the handling dept. and keep the struts from bottoming. I REALLY need to get some bump stops for these struts. I'm not too sure why the struts I took off didn't have any, but I'm really not too fond of the metal meets metal sound I hear when it does bottom.

She is lifted! Installing the strut with the off center block was a little bit of a pain to line up with the blocks already tightened down to the struts. I started by putting nuts on the two square bocks and looking down the hole from above, I used a set of channel locks to grab the angled blocks and turn them slightly to line up.(They were pretty tight and tough to rotate.) I didn't weld the bolts because they stayed in by themselves with the four smaller 1 1/4 blocks. With the angled blocks I had to hold the bolt in from under the fender but it was ok because it was the first one that I put a nut on when doing the final install. With the rest, I used a flat blade screwdriver to guide them through the holes. This offered me some flexibility. I used a ratchet to tighten the nuts and was able to get to each of the bolts with my open end wrench, but it was a close fit. I was able to use the sway bar as well. (I think I'll need it now for sure.) I took her for a little offroad test on a well known trail and didn't have any issues with the bumper bottoming in areas that it had previously or any area for that matter. She still has a bit of that forward lean but not as much as before. I could have gone with the 2" lift for a more level stance and better clearance. I measured 8" of clearance from the bumper. I have new KYB's on the front and I still botomed the strut though. I feel it would really benefit from stiffer springs. Anyone know where to get some for the 4 lug hub and strut? I'll take some pictures tomorrow cause it's dark out.

I made the blocks and found some bolts in my dad's spare tractor hardware bucket. I took the struts off because the clearance is pretty tight to turn a wrench inside those 1 1/4 blocks. I'm getting ready to put the strut on now so I took a picture of the strut with the blocks on it and set it in the way I would be looking at it from the front of the car with the angled block leaning away from the engine bay. I'm sure it's turned a little to far in the picture because I have not tightened the bolt down yet, but is in the general direction.

I found some 1 1/4 " 3/16" thick square tubing in my garage! How long are the strut bolts? If they are under 1" I would be fine. Would I still be able to use my sway bar?

I've got an XT with the longer 2WD struts in the back. I would guess it's about an inch to an inch and a half taller in the rear. Any idea on how I could I go about doing say, a one inch lift in the front? With an inch of lift would the 15 degree angle blocks still be necessary for correct camber?

Yep. That's all she needed. I ran quite a bit of fluid through each corner till I didn't see brown anymore. That fluid was nasty! I ignored the Chilton manuals warning on the not running the car while bleeding. The brakes work better than ever.

Hopefully that's all it is. Ill try that tomorrow. I just checked the manual and it says that if the bleeding operation is done when the engine is off that brake booster damage will result. The bleed pattern is 1.front left, 2.right rear, 3.right front, 4.left rear.

A few days ago I replaced the front struts on the xt and I took the calipers off as well as the brake lines. Since I had a friend around and the front wheels were off, I figured I would have him pump the brake pedal as I poured fluid in the reservoir to try and flush out some of the air and fifteen or so year old brake fluid from the lines. During the test drive, I noticed the brakes were now more squishier than before, but tolerable. Today when I left for work, the brakes failed and I lost all pressure. The pedal went to the floor and pumping it did not build enough pressure to stiffen the pedal. The engine RPMs drop when the pedal is applied. When the engine is off, pumping the pedal pressure and resistance returns, though still kind of squishy. When the engine is started, pressure is lost and the pedal drops to the floor. Is this an issue with the brake booster?

What kind of mbc are you using? does the pressure off the compressor lift the ball off the seat and bleed pressure through to the wastegate actuator? Does the gauge fluctuate when that happens? Im interested in how different the boost gauge reacts in that spot compared to after the throttle and how much of a pressure drop there is. I would Imagine that having it in the spot you do would have a faster response on the gauge but would show a higher pressure than would after the throttle but that's not necessarily a bad thing if tuning in your mbc, unless you have a bleeder hole in the side of mbc to the atmosphere, then it may not be entirely accurate.

So is the clear line coming off the T on your mbc for a boost gauge? Wouldn't it be more accurate to plumb it after the throttle plate so you know the boost/vacuum pressure in the manifold? Or is there no place to tap into on your manifold and this is the next best place? I feel the boost would be higher before the throttle and not give you a true indication of actual boost pressure.

Why or how is that? Did you make a mod to do make it boost higher or are you saying with the flow mods that it naturally wants boosts higher because its that much more efficient? I've got the same mods as you except for the ported wastegate. The last thing I've done is, because I didn't like the bend in the reducer hose between the compressor exducer and the inlet on the ford intercooler, I rotated the compressor housing about 20 degrees. This setup now flows more than it ever has and now wants to boost around 12 psi. The only explanation I can come up with is that when I moved the wastegate actuator when I rotated the compressor it must have been a little off and is either binding or compressing the spring a little more. But if your saying its because its just flowing better than I may not have any problems at all. So do you run this car with that much boost all the time? Is that ok now that the ea82t flows better or should I attempt to lower it closer to stock?

Another reason I question the reliability of the homemade controller to keep a particular amount of bleed or the amout of boost spike at a given boost pressure is I have no idea as to the spring rate of the homemade unit compared to one of the massed produced variety. Right now I need to figure out my situation with the wastegate actuator and get my boost down to a reasonable level before I mess with something that's going to increase it. If it's because my hole is off, it can't be much.