808Manche

Thank you guys for your responses and advice. I looked under the truck today and noticed my bushings are going bad(I think. Theyre dry and cracking as well as the holes are more of an oval than a circle) same with leafs. The leafs in the leaf pack aren’t exactly parallel with each other, the shims are super worn out and the overload leaf is flush with the rest of the springs and last but not least my drivers side shackle seems to be a little bit bent and leaning towards drivers side. So I figure if I replace all of that and go with the 4/1’s(budget is a priority for this job) what front coils should I get to match? Oe spring, oe spring and spacer or aftermarket spring ? I really don’t want the truck to have rake after doing the leaf swap and really don't want a rough ride.

I see now exactly what your talking about. My drive shaft is dead straight. I figured if I'm removing the hardware I figure I might as well just get some new springs in there. I was looking at General Springs and see they have two different options (4/1 and 3/2 military wrap/metric pack) which one will give a smoother ride? I’d prefer a smoother less stiff ride over strength. This is my DD and will rarely get taken off road and when I do it’s on a mellow dirt trail with some bumps and hills.

Thank you for the info. How does the truck ride with the MT’s? Are they stiffer than the regular ones? Is there a big difference in ride quality? Was looking at General Springs and saw they have both regular ones and MTs. Its the original springs and axle. I’ll get around to adding them specs soon. Thanks for the info and picture. Really appreciate it.

What are some possible causes or what should I be looking for that would cause the axle to scoot over to the drivers side? The truck has never been in an accident and has never be wheeled exept for a few gravel roads.

I have tried searching for days now but can’t find anything about this subject. I bought new tires the other day and had them installed professionally and after sitting back and looking at the new look of the truck I noticed my axle seemed off center. I’ve never noticed it before so it very well could have been there prior. The tires stick out of the flares on the drivers side and sits right under the flares on passenger. It favors the drivers side about 3/4” or so. I talked with a couple people about it and they had two different responses. One mechanic said I need to get new leaf springs and change bushings and the other said since my drive shaft is straight I shouldn’t worry about it and maybe change springs(since they’re original and 31yrs old) within the year but doing that isn’t going to change the way the axle sits under the truck. Has anyone else who has a manche with d44 in rear noticed this? Is it normal or is there a fix? I see it now every time I look at the rear and is frustrating not knowing it this is normal or not.

Thank you. If it comes down to that I think I'm going to try the mechanical fan bypass with a shorter belt and electronic fans and shroud. Quick question though, is the fan supposed to spin freely? Before swapping the fan clutch it spun freely and would spin a few full rotations and now after swap it spins maybe about half and stops. Is that normal?

I will definitely look into a better belt. I bought the cheapest one from them

That I’m not sure but before I swapped the clutch The fan did spin freely vs after the swap it has some resistance. Is it supposed to spin freely or have some resistance? Also the longer I drive it the chirp isn’t nearly as noticeable. Any input helps as I'm new to auto machanics

Thanks for the input. I’ll be checking the alignment this afternoon

Thanks for the response, I’ve tried the water on the belt and it does stop. I do have a slight wobble on the waterpump pulley so gonna head to the junkyard today in search of one. If I can't find one or if the used new pulley don’t solve the issue I’m gonna try the dielectric grease technique until I find out which pulley is off. Is there a solid technique to finding misaligned pulleys or just gotta watch the belt?

Thanks for responding, Its a cheap belt I got from Autozone. The only pulley that wobbles is the waterpump pulley. I'm assuming thats the culprit and going to head to the junkyard today in hopes of finding a usable one. I might try your remedy if I can’t find one in the yard

Hey guys, been a follower of this site since the manche I own has been handed down to me from my father in law. Learned loads of things from these forums thanks to you all. I've taken on the responsibility of keeping this baby running and in the family for the next generation (my daughter) to eventually own (well possibly own if I for some reason ever decide I'm tired of working on it which is how it was handed to me). I’ve recently changed the harmonic balancer(tightened to torque specs w/new belt(only because she started chirping real bad) tightened nice and tight like what I’ve read and now just a loud chirp in the morning and softer chirps through out the day) and now the belts been chirping since. I’ve changed the waterpump hoping to solve the problem thinking I had a bad bearing w/ no success. Then changed the idler pulley today and she seems to still chirp. I’ve been having a hard time finding a water pump pulley on island to swap that out since everything else on the serp belt(minus the clutch fan pulley) has been replaced and leads me to believe its what is causing the issue. Waterpump pulley has been a little off balance since I’ve owned it but has never chirped like this until I replaced the harmonic balancer which was causing a knocking noise from the rubber hitting the clutch fan. Now my question is...should I be looking to change the water pump pulley or buying a shorter belt and bypassing the mechanical fan clutch pulley due to bad bearings w/ an electronic fan swap? Or do you think the gator back belts could solve the issue...and for how long would that last? This is the only vehicle I’ve ever really worked on besides an oil change and brakes on my old vehicle so I’m basically a new to auto mechanics. Any help will be appreciated. Mahalos in advance 🤙🏼