haven't been able to reinstall the idler arm, pitman arm and tie rod to center link. When i put arms to center link and put the nuts on them the bolts always rotate with the nuts, so i'm figuring i have to press down on arms until they go all the way down the bolt onto the thicker part of the bolt which is located on the center link. Problem is it's impossible to press down that hard. Couldnt get a c clamp to get in there either. Unlike the many articles shown online on how to install the idler arm back onto the center link, mine dont have ridges in which everything would hold inplace, my stock and the new ones are both the same and bolts on both parts move as well. any ideas?

 

squeeze the two parts together with a LARGE pair of channel locks and an impact gun air or battery will help.

or get regular nuts that will spin up by hand to squash everything together then you can remove the regular nuts and use the lock nuts provided.

 

thanks i didnt even think about channel locks, was using vise grips but kept slipping

 

That's why I replaced everything when I started with just an idler arm.

 

It's a barbaric method, but I used a jack to apply upward pressure on the idler or pitman in order to get enough friction to get the nut started/tightened.

 

well i got it done and aligned everything was put in good so channel locks ended up working for me, however yeah that jack idea would have also caused enough tension to prevent it from spinning and would have been able to tighten it properly

 

Walter!!!! Sup bro. It's Andrew. Small floor jacks work wonders!!!! I tightend up my power steering pump this way using a long ratchet extention. Why did you remove the Pitman Arm? There's no need to remove it, atleast in my 86 IROC.

 

haha hey whatsup man yeah floor jack idea dint hit me until that guy mentioned it, channel locks did the trick though, had to remove centerlink off pitman haha pitman itself stayed in place though

 

Cool. So now your good to go. I would definitely do an alignment though. Are you going to IVC?

 

yeah got alignment done, just needs a few things to go like headlight holder bracket thing broke so light is a bit loppy and it makes a few noises i want to get rid of, and then pretty much done, oh yeah new back tires. ill prob make a trip to ur place and go burn them out out there, and yea goin to IVC again we all gotta hang out again man