i learned that one of my idler bearings are not sealed so I washed all the lube out of the bearing...
not sure on what my solution to that should be

What axles did you end up buying?

They are the 05+ superduty D60 front Sterling 10.5 rear

how are your shocks?
also 3000 miles on NT01s is nuts.
they are probably so heat cycled out they don't do much for you anymore

had a great trip out on the dunes this weekend, some strange driveline and suspension clunking to figure out but no major engine issues.

couple minor things though
- power steering pump whine. particularly when cold, but definitely at higher rpms it whines. This is a brand new pump (c5 vette replacement). not sure if my reservoir is too small or if i need to fiddle with the flow restricter.
- never gets hot at city speeds or offroading, even at high rpms on the dunes, but gets up to 220-230 if i am cruising on the highway with AC on in 80+ degree ambient temps. will be doing a coolant flush to start
- 265k mile junkyard alternator is making noise, have a replacement on its way already
- exhaust manifold leak. all the bolts loosened and i blew out the drivers side gasket. I'm hoping it's just a matter of replacement and torque. I have no memory of actually torquing these bolts since the swap took so long I may have just overlooked it.

and pics of the fun.
My dog loves sand and doesnt mind bouncing around in the backseat for a while to get to have sand and beach time later







Tig actually got so exhausted from the fun time that he let me bury him in the sand

i just have a cheap handheld dymo 160
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005X9VZ70/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
and tried this offbrand heatshrink
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BPV6JWQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
which seems to work just fine, and cover it with generic clear heat shrink for longevity.

Obviously it's new to me and robustness isn't proven out yet but so far happy with it

I seriously doubted the hood would fit so i drove around with no hood for a while

and then decided to drop the hood on to see how much i needed to cut.
surprisingly with a little massaging of the AC lines, it fit great with 3/4"+ of clearance!
yay having a cowl hood.

As expected, IATs with that intake setup was pretty high so I redid it to gain a little more room from the engine and higher up + closer to the cowl vent at the back of the hood.
The hope is to get a heat shielded airbox around the intake at some point


Been driving it daily the past couple days trying to figure out the little things.

posed it next to my disco. it's so strange how different they are for how similar they are on paper.
Basically the same wheelbase, tire size, ground clearance, weight, etc



one of the annoying things I'm going to have to deal with for a while - the aftermarket fuel pressure regulator dumps pressure out the return in seconds.
when I asked the supplier if this is a defective unit, I was told
 

"EFI bypass regulators may not seal perfectly when the pump is off.  They are engineered for the highest possible performance when the motor is running.  OEM pressure regulators must hold pressure for 30-minutes after shut-down to pass EPA emissions standards.  However we know our customers priority is to have the best possible flow and pressure control when the engine is running and we don’t want to compromise this by forcing the regulator to seal when the engine is off.  If an extended crank or hard-start becomes a concern, first allow the pump to run and prime as long as possible after turning the key to the run position, then start cranking the engine just before the fuel pump shuts off.  If the priming cycle is too short to allow the engine to start easily with this approach you may be able extend the priming cycle in the ECU if programmable, or add a timer board or momentary button to the fuel pump run circuit.
 
So based on the video I believe your regulator is working as it should.
 
Thanks,
Justin
Tanks Inc."

and gen 3 (P59) PCMs have the 2 second key on fuel pump prime hard coded apparently so is not adjustable.

this means I need to either learn to key cycle twice each cold startup or deal with extended cranking.

Or find a new fuel pressure regulator.

Has anyone else ran into this issue? what aftermarket regulator won't dump the pressure immediately?

been a while since this thread was touched, but been motivated recently to get this finished up with a self-imposed deadline coming up.
Have a campsite at the silver lake sand dunes booked in a couple weekends so I need this running

finished up the wiring and the HPtooning done with my first segment swappage. (running the stock blazer P59 pcm)
Had a brief panic while I couldn't figure out why i had zero spark but ended up finding the "Crank low res" setting which needed to be changed from a 1 to a 0.
took a while to troubleshoot that but fired up perfectly after that.
routed all the cooling lines and temporarily have all the vacuum lines hooked up (needs some cleanup)
buttoning up a bunch of general things and then hopefully a test drive this weekend.

I had a wake-up call several years back after tearing my achilles tendon fooling around on a ninja warrior obstacle as what is known as a "weekend warrior".
basically an out of shape idiot who thinks they can do more and pushes harder here and there than their body can handle.

so after finishing PT on that I dove into rock climbing and it's been taking over my life ever since.

Good for you for working on yourself! Working on cars is easy but improving yourself takes commitment and real motivation!