Failed Bilstein 5100 install. What happened?

Last night I attempted to swap out the struts on my '12 Sport with Billy 5100's. Seemed fairly straight forward and I had everything I needed (including spring compressor). I swapped out the old strut for the new, with the 5100's set at 1.75" lift, and was attempting to slide the new assembly back into place when I noticed something was wrong. First I slid the tophat bolts into place and hand threaded the nuts to keep it in place, then raised the lower control arm to find that the bottom of the shock wasn't lined up with the slot on the LCA! It was offset just a few degrees, but enough to preclude forcing it in. There was absolutely not wiggle-room, and I tried doing the opposite way by connecting it the LCA and moving it up to the top hat seat.. No luck. I put on the spring compressors with the assembly still attached to the LCA and compressed just a little bit to find that the top hat was actually rotating as I compressed. I thought I could maybe get it to rotate to the desired orientation and slide the top hat it, but there is no room for the compressors in the top hat bracket.

After disassembling, I rechecked to make sure the spring was seated correctly on both ends, it was. I'm puzzled, has anyone experienced this? The fact that the top hat was rotating as I compressed the springs leads me to believe that the 1.75" setting is causing similar rotation relative to the stock-height setting. I've just never heard of this sort of issue in all the preparatory reading I had done - They all say "reassemble strut assembly and just slide it back into place". Any advice would be appreciated

 

Driver side and passenger specific? Just guessing.

 

When I did mine, I had no problem with this. Pics will help. A common mistake (I don't know if this is your problem or not) is installing the spring perch on upside down. I did that and well it wasn't pretty. Hope this helps!

 

^^^^^ was my 1st thought as well but

 

Guess which side the spring perch was installed incorrectly on...It can really be disruptive

 

It really works well using this method to install and re-adjust 5100s.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/billstein-5100-easy-install-method.211535/

 

^^^x2

 

Thanks for the replies, definitely helps me consider all the variables.

I only attempted the drivers side, and failed, so I didn't mix up any passenger side components.

Unfortunately I was too in-the-moment to take pictures. Lesson for next time, take a breath, take a picture!

Thanks for the video DDD. I've seen a less comprehensive video on this and it kinda scared me, but this one makes me feel much better about it. Honestly, this looks safer than using hand-held spring compressors if you have a decent jack. At 3:55 in the video he mentions rotating the coil to line it up since the blistein has a removable plate. My guess is that this is my issue. Probably something to do with the crappy spring compressors. I'm going to go get a better floor jack and give it a shot, and I'll post up after!

 

Screw spring compressors. Just line up the coil in there, put the floor jack underneath and lift it up slowly. One person working the jack and another lining up the shock at the top is reallllllllly helpful. If it doesn't slide right in then you have a problem somewhere

 

Right on, glad to hear this is a tried and true technique. I hate those f#####g spring compressors.

 

Best pic I got for you. Just move everything out of the way, slide it in by hand and then put the jack underneath it and raise it up. As you go higher you'll have to move the coil over a little and align it. You'll figure it out. Hope this helps!

 

I had this problem too. What I did was take a long drift or rod and shove it through the bottom bolt hole and rotate it to the correct position. You can spin the shock relatively easily.

 

Excellent. Between the video and your description I think I'm good to go. Thanks again!

 

Good call, I could have done that. This was with the top hat secured I assume? Since this is my first exposure to strut replacement, it didn't take much for me to abandoned ship

 

I think your lower spring perch might be on upside down.

 

This ^ would have fixed it. Having installed many of these a ubolt works great too and fits the eyelet perfectly, just slide it through the eyelet and rotate. Just make sure you have the top bolted in place first. If its difficult to rotate a rubber mallet comes in real handy.

When assembling these you can have everything lined up initially, but when you torque that top bolt and decompress the coil it can shift things a bit. So its pretty common having to correct the orientation during the install.

Oh and for the member that said they are left/right specific, that's not the case.

 

This is sort of true.....The shocks are not left/right specific but if you are using stock coils i believe that they are. That is the reason there is no need for the trim packer on stock coils.

 

I think taco lean can be with stock suspension too.

 

True, there is a coil difference, but the difference in the coil would not impact the orientation of the lower eyelet to align with mounting tabs in the LCA's. As far as the struts go, there is no difference; they are not left/right specific so even if the coils were switched this would not serve as a solution for his problem.

 

Alright! Got the Bilstein 5100s successfully installed using the floor jack method (no spring compressor), and it was a breeze. As long as you trust your floor jack, and follow the steps carefully, it seemed way safer than using spring compressors. Also, it allowed me to rotate the entire strut and spring assembly into place before compressing it with the jack. Thanks again everyone for your advice.

Here's pics so I get in the habit: Jack-supported lower control arm with top bolt removed on strut. I'll post a pic of the truck tomorrow, stayed up late with this project!