Am I an idiot?

That makes me so happy........

 

It moves down as far as the travel of the shock goes and mabe about a half inch further. the problem is that is won't move for me to get the strut out of the top Mount where the 3 nuts go. or the actual LCA moving out of the way to physically take the thing out

 

Trust me, I understand. I found good used LCAs on the buy/ sell/ trade that had good bushings. There's a thread called cam part numbers (I think that's it) that has all the parts you'll need and the cheapest place to buy them.

 

If there is no tension on the spring than take the bottom shock bolt out and see where it goes from there. Should be enough although it should come down further than that

 

The LCA should just drop out of the way.

 

The first time I did my lift, I used a pry bar to move the LCA down on the driver side. The passenger side was fine. When doing it again, both LCAs had to be cut off and thrown away.

 

My LCA bushing was seized on my drivers side. It was almost exactly as you described, wouldn't drop down even with a lot of force. If you soak the crap out of them with a good penetrating lube, they should free up overnight. I mean really soak them good then wait an hour and repeat, then wait and hit them again just to be sure.

 

I guess that will be my next thing to try.....I only tried the passenger side so far. with my luck both sides will be effed.

I Can't belive I'm having such a hard time. it's a 2014 with 36k !

 

Have you or have you not tried loosening the cams? I don't remember which one I loosened when doing mine, but as long as you mark it with a sharpie you should be fine getting them back in the ballpark.

 

Mine were seized by that mileage. It's because we live in places that melt the snow with chemicals.

I tried acetone/ auto trans fluid mixture as well as PB Blaster. For a couple weeks. No luck. I hope your experience is different.

 

I did try but they wouldn't budge.

 

Ah damn, I'm sorry to hear that man. I hate it when installing something doesn't go smooth. Definitely seized LCAs then.

 

So is it woth my time to try to pry the shit out of it and soak it in a penetrating lube? or do I just say screw it and buy a new LCA (which I really don't want to do)

 

If it were me I'd be trying all I could to NOT buy new ones, but if it needs it, it needs it. Your ability to get back into alignment may be seriously hindered by it.

 

This

 

Hmm.. I didn't remove upper or lower control arms when changing coilovers. I thought there was ample room.??

 

Would the bolts be hard to turn or is it just the bushing itself ? because the LCA bolts loosened without a problem at all

 

Can you actually turn the cam bolts themselves? If they're seized, the bolts won't move.

 

I can turn the bolts that go thru the mounting points but I can't turn the cams themselves

 

It might just be living in Maine that does it, but I've never been able to move a LCA enough to do any type of work without a 4' bar. You shouldn't have to frig around with cam bolts to install a set of 5100s.