Good news is that AOR got back to me and a new (rear) bumper is on the way!
So does that mean there's bad news? Of course it does!
Found a small green puddle under the passenger side of the car, near the back of the tire. I knew it wasn't coolant and as soon as I felt it, I was fairly certain it was refrigerant oil, which I had treated with green dye additive for leak detection. That was a bingo. The evaporator (which, of course, was the only part of the system I didn't replace) was leaking. Since I don't have a recovery system and I didn't want to waste money and vent it to atmosphere I had a local shop recover the refrigerant and swap out the evaporator. Not too happy about having to do that but oh well...
Next was the alignment which I was really looking forward to. First thing the guy asks me for is the camber bolts to which I told him that I had told his girl that I didn't have them and it was gonna need them. So that was strike 1. I also did NOT take into account that the caster got pretty tweaked in the process too, it wasn't as visible as the camber being crazy out of whack. The tech stated he could get 2-degree cams but that wasn't going to cut it and recommended both radius arm and axle pivot drop brackets. Great. They didn't come with the kit I bought and Skyjacker is working on selling them to me separately since Duff apparently doesn't want any more business from me.
The issue was that once I installed the rear add-a-leaf I got WAY too much rake for my liking. I typically like no more than a 1/2-inch difference between the front and rear and it was more like 1.5 - 1.75-inches which looks stupid. I don't plan on towing but I've always used air-bags to keep the ride height level when towing anyway.
That resulted in my adding the 1.5-inch coil spacers to the front which sufficiently threw the front end geometry out of whack. I considered deleting both that spacer and the rear add-a-leaf but that left the rear shocks with minimum travel that bottomed out backing out of my driveway so that was a non-starter.
The alignment tech, who specializes in all sorts of custom/off-road lifts, etc. was confident that with the cams and brackets he could get everything into spec or close enough. It's not my Hellcat or an F1 car so I'm not looking for perfection, I just don't wanna chew up my new KO2s! Speaking of my wheels/tires every one of the wheels had finish defects which I brought to Discount Tire's attention and they immediately gave me a pretty huge price adjustment which I was happy with since they're gonna get beat up anyway.
Got the rest of the interior removed and the headliner out in one piece so I'll be working on getting that done as part of the interior upgrades. There's additional factory sound insulation on the wheel wells which I need to remove before Raptor lining the floor and installing the sound mat so I need to get at that too.
Got my new/factory radiator and just waiting on the cap, thermostat and hoses to swap it out and get back to the factory cooling system (more or less).
1 step forward, 2 steps back but it's a learning process so it's all good!
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www.alloyworksplus.com
show when I first bought it and started digging into it; it had no thermostat and a piece of PVC pipe in the lower hose to act as an adapter for the oversized lower outlet, which is another difference I thought between my BII and the newer model year Rangers/Navajos...
