Where can i find these ball joint spacers?

I beleive thats the bilsteins i have if im not mistaken. One question i cant seem to find the answer to is the procedure of adjusting the snap ring on the bilsteins ride height.do i need to use a coil compressor clamp set or jack it up or just move it with a flathead down to the lowest snap ring spot?

 

Just remove the spacer it will be easier then trying to adjust while on the truck. And if u do adjust them get new c clips, ive head if you adjust them to many time they can fail

 

Compress the spring.

 

but for future reference how do i let them down or go up?

 

Thanks.
With the tires off the ground?

 

Take the whole strut assembly off the truck.

 

https://youtu.be/ZOCtx6mM-u8

 

Jack up the truck, remove the coilovers (not struts), and compress the springs with the coils spring/strut compressor you can rent from Auto Zone or whatever.

There's also a way to compress the spring while it's on the truck, and many people do it this way, but IMO is much more dangerous since it requires not having the truck properly supported on jack stands, etc...

But don't bother with that anyway. Remove the spacer and you'll get basically the same result. SO jack up the truck, unbolt the coilover, and remove the spacer, reinstall...

Like I said before, do NOT stack lifts. Remove the spacer, get the diff drop kit. Let the 5100's do the lifting for you. You may still have some alignment issues with the 5100's maxed out, so you may need aftermarket UCAs like has been mentioned already. But removing the spacer will make it a LOT better than it is now.

 

not sure what you mean here...

 

Maybe he wants air bags so he can slam it and lift it when ever he wants

 

wtf....is that....

 

Buy once cry once. Do it right the first time.

 

@Huckshot you seem to not understand how the suspension on your truck works.

When you install a "suspension lift" in this case, the only thing you are doing is pushing the suspension down in its range of travel. You are not gaining any range of motion. The spacer is like wedging a puck on top of your spring to push it down.

What this does is put your suspension at its fullest droop at ride height. If you were to lift the front of your truck off the ground, the suspension would probably stay exactly where it is. If it was stock, the suspension would droop some before the wheels came off the ground.

This means that you have NO down travel (droop) left, and it will ride terribly. 3" of "suspension lift" on these trucks is the limit because there is no more room to push the control arms down before you hit the end of the travel. This puts a lot of strain on ball joins and CV joints and will destroy them very quickly.

Aftermarket control arms will not help save your ball joints and CV joints. The only thing aftermarket control arms do is move the upper ball joint toward the rear of the vehicle to "lean" the wheel backward. Think of it like a bicycle, your front wheel is leaning back to help keep it pointing straight ahead. This only helps with aligning the vehicle and giving you more caster in your adjustment.

What you have done is put a spacer lift on top of the bilstein lift, in an attempt to get more than 3" of lift. This just forced your control arms down to the point that they have hit the end of travel. Ideally, you want your ride height to be near the middle of your travel. That is how the stock suspension is designed.

 

Well said.

This is exactly why stacking lifts is bad. You can easily exceed the limits of your suspension, which the OP has done here.

Anything over 3” and you should be looking at a bracket style lift (Procomp, etc...) where brackets move the entire suspension and drive train down away from the truck, instead of just angling the control arms down using longer shocks/springs.

 

I just can't believe those things actually were sold...

 

Before making another thread on this maybe you guys can answer it (im sure).. since lifting my truck should i extend the bumps stops?do they help with regular handling on the road ie hitting potholes and whatnot?or just for super flexing on trails?

 

bumpstops are to keep your springs from going negative which will wear them out quicker or (rarely.. if at all) break them. A lot of people don't extend bumpstops and it hasn't created any issues. It depends on how much you really go negative with your springs... which likely isn't often.

 

Ive seen some vids where trucks have really cushony silicone bump stops that are always touching the lca and supposably any type of bumps absorb better by the stops.

 

if you are talking about the front, I don't think it's necessary. I think even less people run front bumps as opposed to rear bumps. Unless you are scrubbing so bad when flexing and you don't want to cut. Most folks start hammering and cutting to fit tires if they are wheeling their junk that hard.

 

Bump stops help when your tires are so large that your rubbing top top your wheel well under compressor before hitting your stock bump stops. But u shouldn’t be running tires that large to start with... most guys here run there billys on the middle setting with after market ucas and 32” tires. With some minor trimming and pinch weld mod. And only rub at like full lock under compression or reversing. Thats usually rubbing against the back the wheel well not the top