Changed Struts

Changed the struts on my 96 4x4 today. With the help of this great resource I was able to change both in about 2 hours or so. Went with the Gabriel model as I don't use this truck for off-roading. The one thing I was worried about was even though I tried to make sure everything went back together the same way, the bottom of the strut was a little off when I went to put in back in the mount. I had to man-handle it a little to get it back in.

Think I'll have any issues with this later?

Going to take it tomorrow to have the front end aligned. Also going to pick up a sway bar bushing kit. Very dry rotted.

 

You just needed to align the top plate (with the 3 bolts sticking up ) with the bottom hole on strut a little bit but you shouldn't have any issues with it down the road...

 

x2, mine took a tiny bit of man handling to get the bottom to line up as well

 

Thanks guys. I'm a perfectionist and get to worrying when it's not just right....

 

Well.........

Took it to the tire place and they said first off, just changing the struts on these trucks you don't need to do a front end alignment. Second off.... I have bad ball joints, leaking rack and pinion boot and bad seals. So, now I need a new rack and pinion. Good news is before long, I'm going to have a new truck.

 

Wow... New rack and pinion, sway bar bushings and a power steering flush and I now have a truck that rides like a new one. Not cheap though, but cheaper than a new truck.

 

did they do an alignment after the new rack? It definitely needs one.

 

Yeah. I thought something the guy said was kinda funny. He said that if this would have been a Ford, Chevy or even Nissan with 180k miles on it, he would suggest saving my money and buy something new, but these trucks are awesome and this is money well spent.

Yeah I know, he's in the business to sell, but it was still funny.

 

well yeah 180k isn't a lot of miles for a taco, but definitely get that alignment checked out because when you replace the rack it definitely moves things around. When I just did the rack bushings it was enough to throw the alignment out quite a bit.

 

Yeah it was part of the process of what they were doing.

 

Ok Rick, I'm going to pile on you a bit about the "perfectionist" statement,

Be a true perfectionist & crawl under your truck once in awhile & check things out (something I don't see many here doing) You don't need to be a mechanic to see shit leaking, or torn up, etc;

Bad ball joints, leaking rack & pinion seals etc. are things that ya coulda taken care of long ago if you'd just do a visual, ok lecture over & I'm glad you found the problem & life makes sense again buddy ..

 

Very true. In my defense, I've only had this truck for a few months...... It's got quite a few things wrong with it so it's taking awhile to get to them all.

 

Fair enough bro', if ya have any questions with issues feel free to ask....