new exhaust and drop in fuel econ.

From : tom

Q: sorry if i offended you bud no offence meant & thanks for the help! and it was your comment remember i did not recommend a smaller cylinder. that got me started. i do recomended a smaller mastercylinder & a dual diaphram booster the brakes now work better than ever. next mod if i keep it that long will be 11 rear drums asy. & balance valves from a junk yard truck via http//www.car-part.com/ dick i used the booster & mc off the same vehicle a 2000 durango. didnt think i could go wrong with that combo. i assumed with so many people complaning about high pedal preasure that chrysler engineers had screwed up on the 97-98. they changed the design in 99 to something that works good. they could have kept the bolt pattern the same on the booster so that the newer model would easily interchange. rear brake drums of 9 dia is a design flaw on a pickup 10 was optional then 11 in 2000 & now rear disc. cant blame dc for the 97 it was chrysler then. my 88 dakota had 9 also changed the axle on that when it failed to a 10 posi setup with heavyer springs off doner truck wish i had it back. chrysler removed the front axle disconnect on new series so now the front end parts wear out. my front c/v are worn out too as a result. ball joints on old 88 had 150k on them & were still tight. this 97 is ready for its 3rd. set no grease fittings on orginal equip i bought moog with grease fittings & lifetime warrany this time. i had complete pedal travel to the floor when bleeding so travel is not an issue. damiler chrysler is not god they screw up more than most auto manufactures. there designs do not take into account that these vehicles will have to be serviced economicaly. having to remove the fender liner to remove the mastercylinder is not resonable nor is removing the dashboard to replace the heater or ac componets. i have read reports of owerers of 2001 durango having to replace the heater core 3-5 times allready at $800 a pop. probably not a future dc customer! and i am a former employee of chrysler. dick you went with a smaller size master cylinder iirc which give you a mechanical advantage which lowers pedal pressure but requires more pedal travel to do the job. you may have reduced your reserve pedal to a less than safe amount by doing so. remember i did not recommend a smaller cylinder.. .

Replies:

From : david

its been a couple years since i did mine but as i recall they are sort of a spring. if you can twist it a bit with a pair of pliers they will pop out. i have a 1999 1500 ram. i was going to change the spark plugs today and i was wondering if anyone could give me some advice on how to get the heat shield tobes from the plug socket. i tried pulling them with needle nose to no availe. thanks very much greg .

From : miles

tom lawrence wrote rams have single-cardan u-joints in their axles not cv joints. labor is about the same to replace a u joint as it is to replace the entire axle shaft maybe an extra half hour on changing the joint but parts costs are around $20 for the u-joint and probably $500 or so for the axle assembly. what would you rather pay like i stated im not familiar with the rams front end. when the cv joint went out on my 1993 nissan altima it was cheaper to have the entire shaft replaced. total cost to replace both sides was $225. if i was doing it myself where labor rates are a few beers per hour i probably wouldnt have replace the shaft. .

From : wm

this is a multi-part message in mime format. ------=nextpart000011801c35a64.b10b8ee0 content-type text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 content-transfer-encoding quoted-printable ive owned a 99 durango with the 5.9 liter engine sice 24k miles. it = now has 55k miles on it and as of late feels really down on power = especially under critical acceleration like merging onto the freeway or = making a pass. it feels so weak that i am very reluctant to make a pass = on a two lane road unless i can see miles of clear road ahead of me. i have not done anything beyond routine oil changes and air filter. i = imagine the truck is at a point in its life now that it needs some = maintenance above just an oil change. the first thing that comes to = mind to try and restore power is replace the plugs and wires. could you = please suggest some good performance plugs and wires is there anything = else i need to do to ensure performance and engine longevity at 50k = miles=20 thanks --=20 kosmo veni vidi vici ------=nextpart000011801c35a64.b10b8ee0 content-type text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 content-transfer-encoding quoted-printable !doctype html public -//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en htmlhead meta http-equiv=3dcontent-type content=3dtext/html; = charset=3diso-8859-1 meta content=3dmshtml 6.00.2800.1170 name=3dgenerator style/style /head body bgcolor=3d#ffffff divfont face=3darial size=3d2ive owned a 99 durango with the 5.9 = liter engine=20 sice 24k miles.  it now has 55k miles on it and as of late feels = really=20 down on power especially under critical acceleration like merging onto = the=20 freeway or making a pass.  it feels so weak that i am very = reluctant to=20 make a pass on a two lane road unless i can see miles of clear road = ahead of=20 me./font/div divfont face=3darial size=3d2/font /div divfont face=3darial size=3d2i have not done anything beyond routine = oil changes=20 and air filter.  i imagine the truck is at a point in its life now = that it=20 needs some maintenance above just an oil change.  the first thing = that=20 comes to mind to try and restore power is replace the plugs and = wires. =20 could you please suggest some good performance plugs and wires  is = there=20 anything else i need to do to ensure performance and engine longevity = at 50k=20 miles /font/div divfont face=3darial size=3d2/font /div divfont face=3darial size=3d2thanks/fontfont face=3darial = size=3d2br--=20 brkosmobrveni vidi vici/font/div/body/html ------=nextpart000011801c35a64.b10b8ee0-- .

From : matt kinsinger

it is getting close to time for the first oil change in my 2003 hemi and i am thinking about starting to use royal purple. i am wondering if anyone knows of any reason not to do this. thanks. .