Replacing adjustable shocks and struts to OME 1999 Tacoma

This is my first post on the forum so please feel free to point me in the right direction if a thread similar to this already exists. Thanks!

A little background...

I have a 1999 Tacoma, 3.4L TRD, with 146,000 miles, that I purchased through Ebay from Texas in 2009 and had shipped out to Hawaii where I live. As with all valuables out here continuous degradation and corrosion is inevitable and now fast forward 7 years and I am driving around a very squeaky, somewhat rusty island truck. The plan is to try and turn that around with some upcoming time off.

Work that I intend to do is mostly front end for now-

OME struts and shocks, Bilstein rear shocks, Lower ball joints both sides, Inner and Outer Tie rods, CV axles both sides, front differential drop kit, new brake pads and rotors both sides, Transmission, transfer case and differential fluid change to Redline MT90 (where applicable). And eventually rear wheel bearings, U-joints and Valve cover gasket.

The purpose of this thread-

The current shocks and struts are DR (can't find these anywhere on internet) with what looks to be an adjustable, threaded sort of nut to adjust lift height. See rusty photos-
At the top of the strut there are the three nuts to remove the entire assembly but the dreaded center nut that releases the spring pressure is non-existent (see pic below). The main question I have is does the threaded lift adjuster hold the spring tension in??? So when I undue the top three strut bolts to remove the assembly the spring will stay under tension and I can remove it safely?? Thanks in advance for any responses and wish me luck as I am a bit of an amateur and I will have a lot of rust to fight removing hardware!

 

Dr coilovers shocks are essentially icon's. Icon bought out dr years ago. They are a high quality rebuildable race shock. If you wanted you could clean them up an send them to icon and totally get the shock rebuilt, not possible with bilstien or ome. Ome is a good brand of shock though if you decide to go that route.

Ya you can just unbolt the coilover From the upper shock mount and lca and pull it out without issue. These are a adjustable coilover. Do a quick search and there are how to threads on how to remove and install your suspension.

 

Welcome to the forum, I would recommend a couple cans of PB Blaster to loosen the rust from the fasteners. Also, check your truck's frame for rust, these trucks are famous for the frames rusting out. Good luck with the project!

 

Right on thanks for the quick responses! Interesting to hear they were bought by Icon... maybe I will look into sending these back to get rebuilt , thanks for the suggestion. Things like that do get kinda expensive when you live halfway across the Pacific though.

I had a feeling it would be fine to just unbolt them and pull em out but just wanted to make sure. I'll be loading up on the PB Blaster thats for sure!

Thanks!

 

Just get those rebuilt and youl have some brand new "functioning" set of adjustable coilovers.

Im assuming you wanted some lift by planning on going ome. if so you can add preload to the coilovers you have to do so (you probably realize this but there are people that dont)