2011 6 lug Tacoma strut spacer wont fit

First off id like to apologize if this has alrdy been discussed somewhere on this forum (cant find it). i bought a 3 front 2 rear lift kit (torch) for my truck. got the rear blocks and new rear shocks on just fine, but i could not for the life of me get the new struts on with the 1.5" spacers attached. i disconnected the top arm from the bottom arm, unbolted the sway bar link to move it out of the way, etc. with the lower arm free to move up and down (supposedly), it was locked in place with just a small amount of room to bounce up and down. i loosened the bolts on the lower control arm and still cant pry it down low enough to get the new strut+spacer to fit. i cant fit my spring compressor on the new strut springs since the coils are too close together. im wondering if the 4x4 transfer case rod is stopping it from lowering enough. anyone have any ideas on this?

 

Since you loosened your LCA bolts you will desperately need an alignment(you would anyway but now its toast) I hope you marked where they were. Have you pryed down on the LCA with a long bar? Did you disconnect your lower ball joint? so the arm can drop?

 

i worked on it again today right after posting this. I ended up getting it but it wasnt easy. Loosened the lower arm bolts again after disconnecting everything and moving the caliper/brake lines out of the way. Started kicking it down over and over and it eventually gave way enough to pry it down while forcing the bottom of the strut in. had to jack the lower arm up to put tension on the spring to get the upper and lower arms to connect together again. just glad i finally got it on and the truck looks much better now. i may have caused another issue for the future tho.. the rod for my 4x4 got stretched out too much on the driver side and started leaking grease. ill have to look that one up another day (hopefully before it becomes a problem).

 

Post a picture of that “4x4 rod”

 

I guess the correct phrasing was Constant Velocity Joint, my bad. the rubber boot closest to the engine was the one leaking a bit

 

still gotta wash it, but the lift is looking good =]

 

Hopefully you didn't tighten the lower control arm bolts until the truck was sitting on the ground. If you tightened them when the truck is in the air it'll rip the lower control arm bushings. Also the stock upper control arm will run out of downtravel very quickly at 3" lift. It'll feel like the truck skips over bumps. The correction is high caster aftermarket upper control arms.

 

you make a great point. i tightened the cam bolts on the lower and upper arm when i jacked up the lower arm to be able to connect to the upper arm. not as good as when the vehicle is on the ground with full strut tension, but pretty close to it (just a pain to do it around the tire when its on the ground). either way it wont matter since i took my truck in to a specialty 4wd off road shop who will do alignment on afternarket suspensions. they said to bring it in before they would make an appointment to make sure they could break free what was needed before scheduling me in. they told me that the metal sleeve inside the lower control arm bushing was seized to the cam bolt on both sides and that they would need to cut out the lower arms and replace with new lower arms. i suspected they were just trying to get more money out of me, but they insited that tacoma's are known for this issue. oh well.. guess ill let that shop take care of tightening the upper/lower cam bolts correctly on Friday followed by an alignment.

 

also, my new upper arms (for 2-4" lift geometry) arrived today and ill be putting them on before that friday appointment for lower arm replacement and alignment. ill make sure to have the truck on the ground before i tighten the upper arms at the bushings