Well today I was scheduled to get my Bilstein leveling struts installed and an alignment, well firstly, my mechanic couldn't do it because his spring compressor could not handle the spring? I dont really understand that but I took his word for it, I thought they didn't need to compress the spring though.. And then they checked my truck over and my lower ball joints are quite bad. So thats gonna be fixed on Friday, $900 to fix the joints, them i'm gonna have the dealer do the struts and allignment, $170 for the struts, $60 for the alignment. So I have to get this fixed before the end of the month or I wont be able to get inspected.





F@%$!!!! I was planning on using that money for my wheels & tires, well thats on hold until next month or April. Oh well saftey before looks. My Generals still have a few thousand miles left.

 

How many miles are on the truck?

 

sounds high to me. I'm not sure on the lower ball joint but the uppers are integrated into the UCA which can be bought online for about 100 a piece and installed yourself. The lowers might be able to just pop out. Either way you need alignment afterwards. You could rent a spring compressor from parts store. It seems like i remember reading that you need two compressors?

 

I just replaced the lower ball joints when I did my drop kit and it was not hard to do, the ball joints were about 50 bucks total and they will rent you the press and it wont cost you a thing as long as you return it, not that difficult, now that I have done it once, I would not pay 900 for someone else to do it and you are getting an alignment anyway.

 

again darren if you want to attempt anything on the your truck i can walk you through the steps need.

900 bucks is crazy high for ball joints

 

900 is way too high, just like your mechanic!!!!

 

 

hey pat, how hard is it to install bilstein leveling struts?

 

personally i would buy the stuff and do it yourself. the uppers are a piece of cake. unsure on the bottom. when i had my struts swapped at the local shop, they said they never seen such stiff springs. i know that i ruined my spring compressor trying to swap them. if the bottoms are no good, do the uppers while your at it. of course they have to compress the spring and take the shock out and then put it back together. pretty simple swap, it cost me 60 bucks to have it down, i brought just the shocks in. 900 is nuts, i would have guessed 650 or so.

 

it's not hard at all. take the strut assembly out and compress the spring, undo the nut and release the tension, then switch the shocks and put it all back together. the shop charges 2 hrs labor to install them, well here anyway and them 50 more for an alignment.

 

900 is a screw job.

 

lol.
Yeah tell him to stuff it for $900.
Do it yourself or go somewhere else.

 

om not good with suspension, although when i switched shocks on my civic all i did was put the shock in front of a box and when it launched the box helped it slow down. what do you mean by compress an release tension?? the same as i did

 

I had the same problem with my spings, had to take it to a 4wd shop. For what i payed to have my bilstiens installed i could have purchased a heavy duty spring compressor. Do the ball joints yourself

 

the spring gets compressed so you can take the nut off the top of the shock and then lift it up slowly so the spring and all that stuff can come off the shock

yeah i had one of those and the thing was ruined by the springs, it ate the threads off it