Better to drop radius arm or carrier bearing crossmembers?

[Shran]

I dread these carrier bearings because you almost have to disassemble it to get the right bearing ordered. There were like 5 variations for the '95 I was working on, different bearing ID was the main difference.

 

[lowspeedpursuit]

Yeah, the number of bearing ID variations is why I wonder if there ought to be slightly different sizes of shield as well, but the companies determined it's not profitable to produce them all.

I measured my old ID at 1.18"/30mm. I'm using the Dorman 934050, since that's what Amazon had, if that helps someone in the future. Looks like there are at least 1.18"/30mm, 1.26"/32mm, 1.38"/35mm, and 1.57"/40mm. I do wish there was a reliable map of which factors (drive, trans, cab, etc.) want which bearing.

 

[lowspeedpursuit]

This is my everything thread now, I guess. Obscure electronics question:

I pulled the GEM to remove the chime, and I see it's an F6* part, and says "4x2" to boot. So replaced at some point by the PO. This truck has a manual shift t-case and appears to have 4wabs.

That means it shouldn't really matter if the GEM is 4x2, right? The only thing that's coming to mind is the speedo in 4low, which is A: not critical and B: a quick search says gets handled by the ABS computer in 4wabs trucks.


EDIT: Per the manual and RonD, the GEM is involved in electronic-shift and the "shift module" is just a relay box. The speed sensor is connected to the GEM (4x4 speed lockout?) but there's nothing between it and the speedometer, so I guess we weren't correcting the electronic speedo for 4low yet in '95-'97.

So from my perspective (manual-shift, manual locks, crank windows) whichever GEM should be fine. Not sure if intermittent wipers were an option I have to care about here.

 

[Rick W]

Yeah, I ended buying 2 bearings, missed the deadline to return the first, aligned the U joints wrong, and had to spend 3-400 bucks to get it fixed. But I bet it was still cheaper than if I dropped it off.

On your electronics question, you’ll probably do better to start a new thread. Maybe one of the administrators can move that over to a new thread for you.

 

[SenorNoob]

That makes sense to me. I thought the electronic shift transfer case was still a separate module in 95?