Our Excellent Adventures

Yep, it was hot today. Not as hot as in Mosul, Iraq, where it was 109 today, but East Bay hot. Still, I had a clean drive way, mods to do on the Sprinter. A perfect afternoon!

I jacked the Sprinter up about 4 inches using the trailer hitch. That gave me a little more room for rolling about looking for sockets that for some reason are just out of arms reach or under me where I can’t see them!

I got a new sway bar and Koni shocks for the rear in this afternoon and decided to go for it. I had gotten as estimate from a shop for 6 hours to do the work which translates to about $725. I looked underneath the bus and saw I would have to remove and replace 10 bolts to do the job. This is a no brainer.

To remove the shock you need 2, 18mm sockets, wrenches or a cresent wrench. All of these bolts, nuts today are torqued pretty tight so eat your Wheaties before starting or get a small cheater bar if necessary.

You can see from the photo below, the Konis are larger than the stock shocks.

The bolt and nut at the bottom of the shock are 18mm.

The bolt at the top is 21mm and very deep threaded. I thought it would never come out. Definitely takes some horse to get this one loose.

I am not sure how long the first one took but the second took 18 minutes to swap.

Here is a picture of the stock sway bar. You need to remove 4-50 tork screws and 2-18mm bolts/nuts. Start with the screws and remove the bolts last. This bar is easy to handle as it is very light.

The difference between the stock and new sway bar is shown here. There is a big difference in diameter. There is a substantial difference in weight which makes if a little difficult to install the new one.

The new sway bar comes with new axle bushings and new bushing for the arm (left and right). It also comes with some very sticky grease (like the old wheel bearing grease). I used it on the bushings for the arms but I did not put any on the axle bushings. If I need to, the axle bushings will be fairly easy to grease.

The bolt on the sway bar arm is 18mm and the tork screws on the axle bushing are a 55. The arm is under a slight pressure. I removed the axle bushing first and then the arm bolt. Installing, I installed the top tork screw and then went to the other side and installed the top screw. Then the bottom screws and last the arm bolts. They took some force to get the bolt through. Then I went back and tighted all the screws and bolts.

The finished sway bar replacement in place. Tommorrow I make a run to Monterey so I will see if things are tightened up a bit. I would expect less sway and faster recovery from a bounce.

The Sprinter is a pleasure to work on! Everything is so clean underneath and easy to get to . . . the Eurovan I had was covered underneath with something like cosmolene - no matter what you did, you got sticky and dirty. The oem sway bar was coated with something black but that’s what the Lava Soap is for.

Saturday we had a get-2-gether and a lots of fun. We had 5 or 6 Sprinters there, 2 from SMB. We also had 4 or 5 great 4wd Sportsmobiles and one owner with his Sprinter on the production line at SMB in Fresno. Lots to look at, learn about and talk about!

Tony was there with his Lopes 55 Special from Sportsmobile (the red one). That is quite the deal with the stereo system, satellite dish, etc. More on that here http://www.sportsmobile.com/3_bikes.html.

These are some pics silkwan (from a different forum) took - he apoligized for the contrast - too busy talking. Thank goodness someone was taking pictures!

After Saturday I decided to upgrade the bus’s shocks and sway bar. Also, as soon as I win the lottery, I am getting a CJ5 to pull behind our Sprinter so I can join some of the 4wd Sportsmobile parties. :^)

Had there been a contest, no doubt I would have won but there would have been some close seconds. One 4wd was about the same color as mine and just impeccable.

I am hoping the next get-2-gether we will have some different branded Sprinters and maybe a Class C or two.

I think almost everyone learned one thing or another about Sprinters, SMB 4w drives, how-to’s etc. We had lots of goodies, beer, water, etc. but the group seemed pretty shy about drinking so Tony and I helped make up for it. Hey, the kids wouldn’t even take cookies! Next time it will have to be a bbq. And somewhere shady!