Looking for a Little Advice on Some Shop Repair Quotes

I was looking at them going "it's only 4 bolts per torque arm. How difficult could it be." Maybe a couple hours If the bolts fight you. All the bolts have good access.

I've rebuilt ball joints on my Dodge Ram 2500... now that was a pain. Had to pull the front hubs, pull the brakes, pull axles, and press out the joints.

Couldn't see how the torque arms would be that hard.

 

Well, my truck is still in the shop. They said the axle was "worn/damaged" around the kingpin... Not sure how that happened. They're telling me that will be at least another $1800-$1900.

Waiting to see if its possible to have the axle repaired. Either way I'm supposed to pick up a trailer in Texas and heavy equipment in Kansas within the week.

 

I got my truck back today and got my torque arms. 50% done with about 3 hours of work.

Figured I would post an update in-case anyone searches replacing torque arms.

Its not extremely easy but certainly not $1700 difficult. I spent around $400 on new bushings and had to buy a $100 shop press from Harbour Freight (with a 20% coupon of course). I rented the ball joint press kit from Advanced Auto which gave me the right size tube to press out the bushings. You could probably use a large 28 or 30mm socket to press them out too. So all in all, I will save around $1200 to do them myself. (Their 6-7 hours of shop time would probably be somewhat accurate but then again I'm slow). Now that I know the tricks I could probably do them twice as fast.

Pulling the torque arms is easy... Pressing them out is really easy. Putting the arms back on the truck was a little more difficult. I started the truck and aired up the rear to help line up the bolts (one one side I had to dump the air). and used a large 36" crow bar to pry them in place and slide in the spacers.

Tomorrow I have to do the front tandem axle which will be a little more difficult.... My trailer is about 2 hours away so I don't have a convenient way to pull my 5th wheel back, which would make the job a lot easier.