Need quick advice- billy 5100 install not going to plan

Hey guys

Crossposting this again from suspension as I need someone to chime in quickly here.


I am installing 5100s at the 1.75" mark. I removed the shock, reinstalled the coil, reinstalled it in the top plate, put the pin in the lower part of the shock, and the 2 bolts holding the lower arm up are way far away from being able to gun em back in. I figured, jack up the lower arm to compress the shock, then it'll all meet up - started jacking it up and I was raising the whole truck. Shock isn't compressing.

Doing it just like this guy in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdyE8VkIqPg&

But when he brings the lower arm back up to cinch it in - mine's like 3 inches away.

Aghk! Whatd I do?

Trying to figure out what I screwed up, any advice will help! Thanks!

Eric

 

check out the last page in my build page. i installed my shit similar but without using spring compressor. worked just fine.

edit - try pulling down on the uca. it will bring the two bolts going into the knuckle closer to each other

 

what part of az are you in. if youre in tucson i may be able to swing by and help you guys finish.

 

That's awful nice of you Andrew- but I'm up in Prescott. Gonna try yanking on the UCA now, after I set up a second jackstand just in case... dont like pulling hard on stuff on a single jackstand.

 

The spring sits on the bracket that sits on the ring that goes in the groove. If you can still see the ring in the groove the bracket is upside down. Be very carefully this is dangerous because the ring could slip out of the groove.

 

Could you take a pic of what it looks like? It shouldn't be that far off. I didn't unbolt the lower control arm from the spindle mount and didn't have any issues with mine. Did you put the spring clip on the 5100 the correct side up?

Also, what the hell is that they're installing at 2:43 for the rear shock? Is that common for shocks to not fit into the factory mount? Seems like a shotty work around and not nearly as strong as the OEM mount up.

 

What you mean single jackstand? you should have one jack stand on each side of the front, and the floorjack underneath the lca. pushing down on the UCA should do the trick.

 

x2. make sure it is seated correctly.

 

I'm only doing one side at a time, so I only have one side jacked up. Is that bad?

If you can't tell this is the boldest thing I've attempted mechanically to date.

Pretty certain I have the lower cup that the spring sits on correct - if I flipped it, it would be higher instead of lower, and I cant see the clip.

 

You should have the entire front end jacked up with a jackstand on each side, with the floorjack underneath the lca when decompressing and compressing the spring.

 

it also helps having another person there with you to help out. he can push the uca down while you line the bolts up and get em screwed in.

 

Thanks Andrew- that was it, compressing the LCA/pulling down the UCA. I was being too gentle with it.

That video I posted, the guy just swings it down, swings it up, done. I'm not sure how since he added a spacer - that should preload like I'm doing. I got paranoid when I started jacking the LCA and the frame was raising off the stands.

At any rate I'm tearing into shock #2 now. I will most certainly need an alignment after this, pretty sure I just screwed it up when I loosened the LCA.

Moral of the story - dont let me work on your truck! Haha.

 

thats what i thought the problem was. no worries man i am new to wrenching on my truck too. anytime you mess with the ucas or lcas youll need to redo the alignment. especially the lcas considering you are messing around with the bolts that help with alignment. glad you got it figured out.

 

Install came out great. Thanks again to everyone for helping, especially Andrew, I will rep you all up for it. TSB done last week, truck is level, corners way better now, the added stiffness at 1.75 I actually like a lot more than I thought I would.

My next few projects are gonna be painting interior parts though! This was a grueler. Passenger side took me a long time, drivers side everything just worked. Go figure. Thanks again guys!

 

This is what you did
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cF4PONAz-8&feature=related

 

Beats doing it this way....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KogNDHik_8Q

 

That is the funniest shit I have ever seen!!!!!!!!!!

 

No. It isn't. The way the spindle blew away from the upper ball joint was dangerous.

The way I did it, and have done numerous times on different vehicles, there isn't any violent "releases" of energy.

Where in there does it say to DC the upper ball joint from the spindle. All the weight and energy is placed on a QUALITY floor jack. All the suspension components are in their natural range of motion during this process.

 

Minus the spindle part, it's pretty much what you did. It's nothing new... It's a lot easier than using a spring compressor though.

 

So you weren't being a sarcastic prick? My mistake then. Each method has its risks. The only safe way to do it is have someone do it in a wall/floor mounted spring compressor.

If you had the chouce between using a rented autozone compressor and this method, I'd suggest this method. No point in time did it feel as sketchy as the rented spring compressor.