Gracie II the D21

[HRH]

Alright, so here are the results. Can't tell that much difference, but it's about an inch taller in front, and one and a half to two inches taller in the rear. I need to make a customer trailer hitch that doesn't hang down so low, and a rear bumper skid bar that's right next to the body for max clearance.

[Laecaon]

I have installed a ton of Rough Country stuff. Cant complain too much for the price. Usually went together pretty well.

Back definitely looks taller. Front looks a just a little stouter.

[HRH]

I'm not complaining for the price, I'm complaining for the obviously incorrect engineering of a shock body too long to fit the intended application. What I would like is for them to make an N3 shock that matches the factory unit so I have a nice new shock that matches the rear.

My rock sliders came today, quite excited!

[HRH]

Well post image is screwing up, but I hit 240k in the hardbody today, woot woot! Just sent off an email to Rough Country, hopefully that will get some traction. I'd like them to send me the cooler N3 shocks for the fronts that actually fit, to match my new rears.

[HRH]

Post image appears to be working now. Here's what I sent Rough Country:

[Taterhead]

Hopefully they resolve it soon.

[HRH]

Finally replaced my original D21 half shafts today. 240,000 before leaking, not bad. The boots finally gave out and the LF was spitting grease. RF was just about to go in the same spot.

[HRH]

Update: Nothing has been resolved on the lift. I've sent multiple emails to Rough Country, basically got ignored, one fellow argued with me about needing static ride-height measurements when I explained to him the ride height makes no difference to the arc of suspension travel from full compression to full extension. I reached out again a week ago and got another person to send emails to. He informed me they didn't have shorter shocks, which is all well and good, but my issue is the larger problem of someone has included shocks with a kit that clearly don't work. Hence, it would be nice if they fix that so the next guy doesn't have the same issue I do.

I gave this Bryan fellow a call today, hoping he gets back to me. So far, I'm not impressed. I take the time to do a write up with pictures and measurements (basically all the leg work for them) and I get nothing in return other than pushback and no communication. Not one person I've emailed has said, "Hey, one of our employees has a 4x4 hardbody, we'll check it out on his vehicle and let you know!" Seems to me if I was making and selling lift kits, I would want my products to be correct, no matter the cost. It's a really simple problem and I'm going on 4 months trying to get it resolved. And not resolved for me, I've already fixed the issue with factory shocks which work perfectly. I'm trying to fix this for every other person who buys it and finds out the shocks don't work. My conclusion right now is no one cares at Rough Country, hopefully that changes.

Here is the original email I sent with pictures from November 19th of 2020:

Hi there,

I recently got lift kit #80530 for a '93 Nissan hardbody. The control arms and rear shackles fit fine, albeit tight with the poly bushings, but no worries there. The problem I ran into was the front N3 shocks that came with the lift. The rears fit just fine, but the fronts have too long of a body. What we found after installation is at static height (before raising the torsion bars) the exposed shock shaft had about 3/4" of clearance before limiting on compression. If we jacked up the rear corner and bounced on the front bumper, the shock easily limited out before full compression of the front suspension.

The basic problem with this "lift" is that the front suspension isn't actually changed. The new upper control arm does a nice job of giving better ball joint articulation without binding, which is certainly welcome, but the factory rubber pads for limiting are unchanged. Meaning, regardless of where the ride height is set for the "lift", the suspension geometry remains the same on compression and extension.

Naturally, being a service advisor and a NAPA parts guy for 10 years, I dug up my handy dandy pdf from Monroe regarding shock dimensions.

The stock D21 1986-1997 4wd shock is 8.125 compressed length, and 12.125 extended length. The 2wd D21 shock is a hair longer, at 8.875 compressed, and 13.75 extended.

The front N3 shock that comes with the Rough Country kit, which (according to the fellow I talked to), is part number 23197, with shock body number 660766, is a whopping 9.89 compressed, and 14.82 extended. My curiosity is if the stock range of travel is unchanged, how on earth are you expected to fit a shock body that's nearly 2 inches taller in the same mounting spot?

The only theory I could come up with is removal of the limiting rubber pads, but that would be a grave error as the cvs would surely grenade in short order under beyond full articulation. What I'm left with is someone measured wrong and the wrong part number got associated with that kit.

So I got some 37047 shocks from NAPA and checked them. There's well within a 1/4" or better leeway at full extension from shock limit. Compressed is the same. I needed to not punch a hole through the N3s to leak fluid everywhere, so I lifted the ride height and stuck in the factory replacement shock.

What I would like is if you guys could check my findings, verify they're correct, and send me some new N3 shocks that have the nice bigger body and more fluid capacity, but with the appropriate dimensions to match up to the factory shock. As it is, I can't use the N3 up front and that's just disappointing.

Please see the attached pictures and let me know what you think. Thanks! And yes, the LF cv is leaking, that's going to be fixed shortly.

-Matt Albertson
Service Advisor at Autocraft Dishman
Former Parts Guy
Mechanic
Datsmo633 on youtube

[HRH]

UPDATE: After contacting Spencer (West Coast Sales Rep) at Rough Country, I got a call from him today. As it turns out, the aftermarket shocks can't be made smaller or they don't get the desired performance. Consequently they are a little too long. He confirmed most people crank up the front about 2" and as a result don't hit the limit due to the torsion bar only twisting so far, which was my theory to begin with that no one would confirm. This doesn't work if you actually jump the truck, which I do on occasion. Apparently I test my stuff more than the average person.

The way to fix this is to cut off the front upper shock mount and raise it higher, which wouldn't be a problem actually. My issue was prior to this I kept getting told there aren't any shorter shocks, but not why or an explanation of the problem. Or raising the front more, which I find silly since I like a negative rake and I still haul stuff in the bed that squats it, and I want it level when I do that. Not to mention, not raising it so much allows for better cv and ball joint angles.

Anyway, I'm stoked that I finally got a hold of someone who cares enough at Rough Country to explain things and acknowledge my simple problem. Thanks Spencer!

[HRH]

Since I got the race car running today I decided to give a little attention to Gracie II. Finally put on the fender I found out at pull and save that is conveniently the same color. I also repainted the wipers since they've had electrical tape on them for about 5 years. they blinded the crap out of me on a trip because all the painted flexed off and it was just stainless steel underneath.

also decided to take care of the big rust spot on the cow sandblasted that and painted it and put it back on with a slightly different hue red but doesn't look too bad. either way all this stuff is not even close to prepped right basically just sanded it off a little bit scratched up and hit it with paint there's imperfections everywhere but it looks good from 20 ft away.

I also took the rubber wheel to the stripe on the driver side since I had to replace the door with a non-strike door after that chick hit me. so now both fenders and both doors have no stripe and the only stripe that remains is the cab corner down the side of the bed which I will eventually get around to taking off but it takes it damn long time.








And there's a picture of Rue being extra cute just for good measure.

[HRH]

All right after yesterday's playing with the race car I did manage to get one more project on the truck finally done. I've had the gauge mounted for the air fuel ratio for about 3 months while the rest of it hasn't been installed. wire it up everything yesterday and except for the odd portion of having a reversed yellow and white wire on the lc2 everything worked fine. Yellow was supposed to be analog input number one and white wire is supposed to be for headlight input to dim the display. had it hooked up correctly and it wouldn't work and so I started troubleshooting with jumper clips and found that issue.

I have found the truck runs fairly Rich most of the time and it cruise is 14.6ish or so but no leaner than that and sometimes a lot less leaner. Like 13.5. It explains why I get s***** mileage in the truck. If I get really ambitious one of these weekends I'll actually hook up the other ECU and attempt to tune it myself but I'm probably going to wait until Chris gets back and have him do it. plus I didn't get anything done on the wagon axle which I really need to start going on but I was trying to finish up the z car so I can get it complete and done.

[HRH]

[HRH]

Project put AC back in the truck beings now!

Alright,so I got the hard lines I needed, almost. Found a '96 truck in the wrecking yard, one line is correct, the top line is not. Just dug all over the spot in the garage, pretty sure all that stuff got yarded out a while ago. Sigh. Now I'm back on the parts trail. The condenser is the same, so that works. I think the AC compressor is the same spacing/mounting between the two, just different port styles, which means I should be able to use a KAE compressor on the KADE bracket and all will be good. Theoretically. Need to do some digging online, get some comparisons. If I can't find the right truck to get the lines from, I should be able to get another Nissan line, section that, have my Datsun guru weld it up and have a functional hard line. Then the rest should be easy enough.

[HRH]

Oh joy, gotta leave Nissan for raiding the old parts bin with AC. Doing some digging, I find the AC hoses I have coming are likely incorrect. The evap core has male fittings, it needs to have female to fit the lines I got. At least the top fitting, think that's the discharge? Anyway, the big fitting. Since obviously the evap core is the most annoying to change, I'm likely going to make the lines fit around that. Pretty sure a custom line is going to have to happen.

According to the pictures, I might have an early AC evap core, which I shouldn't, the rest appears to be correct. Think I'm going to go to pull and save again and dig for crap. Bleh. Good thing it's not hot.

[HRH]

You know there are a lot of times I curse Nissan. And then there is the day I say, I so love Nissan for being lazy! . The single cam ka bracket for the ac compressor is identical to the double cam ac bracket. Booyah!

I cleaned out the evaporator core and taped off the bottom and put the cap thing I had on the top fitting. Hopefully it will slowly boil the rest of the crap out over the heat of the coming days. Use brake cleaner and then some mass air flow sensor cleaner and compressed air. Any other stuff hopefully will get taken care of in the suck on the AC machine.

short of it is I'm only going to have to have one line fitting welded to a different fitting and then all the stuff I ordered should fit and work! Wooooo! that is of course providing the evaporator core hasn't been compromised for being open for 12 years. I'm going to chance it though before I yank the dash.

[HRH]

So the good news is dad welded up the AC line for me. The bad news is I was cleaning out the condenser tonight and it wasn't great. Then I started to go flush the compressor, and the clutch I thought was good had a rough spot. After spinning it a few times, I finally bit the bullet and hopped on rockauto and ordered a sub-200 dollar compressor and a new condenser. Figured if I'm doing one, why not the other. I was totally fine using junkyard parts, but the clutch being iffy got me thinking about having to do it over and that would be annoying. It's annoying to spend another $300 with shipping, but oh well. By the time I'm done, minus the existing evap core (please work!) it'll be as I planned. Spending about $500 to get the system back up and running. And with the bills I give other people, you'd think that would make me happy, lol. What's the saying? It's only money!!

Also, trying to pick up a Jeep Wagoneer. I think those axles need to be under the hardbody. Both of them!!

[HRH]

On my way to get a Jeep I can hear this morning I somehow managed to snap the seven wire trailer connector on the trailer. I think it got caught up in the chains or managed to get an unlucky strike when I bottomed out the jack tube. anyway got it repaired rather quickly and then headed up to about 15 miles south of Canada and got a wagoneer. Why you ask? Because high pinion Dana 44 front! both of these axles will be going into the hard body so I actually have a selection of gears after I do a solid axle swap and coincidentally they happen to be 58 in wide which is just about hard body width.

[HRH]

I was starting to get hard on for this Wagoner and I still might but the problem is it's been neglected so much. Engine is debatable if it's even decent for rebuild. The amount of crap unearthed in the engine bay from the wiring harness to the open orifice on everything fuel system water jacket etc, not to mention the 8 lb of rodent crap around the intake leads me to think that it would take me at least 3 or 4 hours to attempt to get the motor back together and I already know they have problems getting this thing to run back in the day. Judging by the fact that it has tabs from 97 I'd say it's probably a lost cause.

And it has that back window slide down feature that I really really like. but I suppose if I was looking for a nice Wagoner I would have paid the money for a nice wagoneer not a $250 hulk for parts. So back to the original plan cut this bitch up and take the axles out.

[HRH]

Today is the day I got the last half of the AC system installed yesterday night and all I have to do on lunch today is put a belt on and wire one little connector and then we should be able to hook it up to the machine and see if I actually have AC in the hard body again. I'm hoping that evaporator core that's been open for 10 years works okay. I was able to put pressure through it so it should be good.

Oh yeah and I ordered a turbo manifold and a turbo for the hard body too. It'll be a little bit before I get that done but it's in the works.

[HRH]

After 10-12 years I have glorious AC back in the hard body! Had to do an impromptu fan clutch replacement mine was spinning nice and freely when it was warm so it wasn't sucking past the condenser. After that pressures return to just about perfect and ice cold in the cab! I'm so excited!!!!

The only irritation I had was the condenser inlet for the high side line was clocked 25° out so I had to bend the new hose and clip a little off the top of the core support to make that work. And then the compressor I got really should have a 7 series belt instead of a nine series so it's a little bit too wide but seems to be working fine. The crank pulley in the idler pulley are both wider than normal like 7/16 instead of 3/8. I figure if it becomes a problem later on I can always switch to a smaller belt and run a smaller idler pulley and then I only have the crank pulley which is deep enough where it shouldn't matter it can run either I think. At the moment it works without squealing so I'm going to call it just fine.