Problems with strut replacement 2004 tacoma

^yep, only a little pressure

technically you're still "removing" the lbj from the picture (in a matter of speaking). you then have to play with the jack and then line everything up holding the spindle in one hand

if you replace stock height parts this is not necessary but for lifts might be more problematic to get everything back together as it's stiffer and with mine I had to rotate the spring since at full droop the spindle/ubj was touching

 

actually no,

1 - you already have the truck frame supported to remove the strut using jack stand and lift jack so you don't need anything extra.

2 - the spindle moves separately and articulates easily on the upper ball joint for setting it back in place after you jack up on the lower arm to compress the strut to its normal position after it is installed, this is something you already have to do to remove the jack stand holding up the frame while you replaced the strut.

everything you do you already do with the exception of the 4 bolts being removed then reinstalled after you thank yourself fore being smart enough to remove them. the only difference is do you pry on it because you don't want to remove those last 4 bolts or do you remove them and not need to pry on anything. I am not "theorizing" on this, I did mine, I fought like hell with jacks and pry bars "as instructed", then I removed those 4 bolts and everything went easy as pie with no prying needed. I spent an hour and a half fighting the first side with lbj bolts in place, the other side I removed the lbj bolts and it took all of 15 minutes.

your getting ready to do your struts so its really easy, do one side by prying, forcing, and hoping not to bend or break things, then do the other side my way and tell me it wasnt 10,000 time faster and easier.

the whole argument against doing this was that it was way too involved and time consuming involving lots of extra work which I have proved that is not true.

I wouldn't be posting this info if it wasn't an easy way to save time and energy doing the job, im not trying to make extra work for anyone

 

I've replaced my struts twice, and didn't touch the LBJ's. Too much additional, and un-necessary work. I did disconnect the SB, which involved removing only one non-critical bolt.

The video posted by keakar is a good video, in spite of a couple of errors and omissions, but keep in mind that the intent in that video is to replace the LBJ, not the strut.