ok guys i just finished putting bilstein front struts on my truck. these are the struts designed for 4"-6" lifted trucks. my friend and i started this project at 10am this morning, everything came apart pretty easy




even the coil springs cooperated and compressed pretty easy although when the spring compressor starts to bend, it gets pretty scary. these struts remove the giant spacer ontop of the factory strut and move the stock coil spring back up to factory position. i also added a 2" leveling kit ontop of the newly installed strut, to make room for my 37s i bought. putting everything back in went pretty smooth, although it is a little tight.


ok now my truck is sitting with about 8" of lift and looking good with bald 35s that measure 33"


put the tires back on and removed the jack stands, as expected the drivers side cv is at an angle but nothing to extreme, and the upper control arm is pulled down pretty far to bolt to the knuckle but i can fit my fingers behind the arm and spring, and between the knuckle and spring, nothing is rubbing and i can live with it.


now heres my problem, the passenger side is alot worse lol the upper control arm is touching the coil spring and so is the knuckle! wtf could i possibly have the strut/spring asy in backwards? or if i adjust the camber/caster bolts will it bring it out far enough so that nothing is touching? also my cv angle is pretty bad on this side as well.


im really stumped here, so after scratching my head for awhile, i bust out the tape measure, both sides of my front bumper lower valance measure 24" at the lowest part. and both fender flares measure the same at the arc almost 48". idk wat to do. i need to get this fixed, any ideas? advice? suggestions?

 

those balljoint angles are horrible man. I would NEVER drive with angles like that.

IIRC putting a spacer on top of lift struts is a big no no. You could probably get away with like a 1" spacer but its still not recommended....

take off the spacer and do a BL or step up to a rize!



oh also Camburg makes good UCAs for lifted trucks but I still dont think those would put your balljoints at a good angle.

 

You're trying to wedge too much in there, man. Plain and simple, not enough space.

 

did you orient the spacer for the level kit in correctly

 

Are the shock's at the zero height setting?

 

so i figured out what im going to do. struts are set at the 6" setting, after some more measuring i came up with this.
the spacer i took off from rough country is 6".
i didnt kno this but rough country decided to only make the drop brackets for the lower control arms 5".
(so theres a one inch angle difference on the upper control arms to knuckle)
and with my 2" leveling kit its putting my ball joint angles as if i had a 3" spacer.
so tonite i am swapping for a 1" leveling kit to see how it works. hopefully everything works ill keep u posted.

 

ok so tonite i tore it all apart and took my 2" leveling kit off AND found my problem on the passenger side! it seems when i was switching the stock parts onto the new strut i somehow put the coil spring seat (metal part the bottom of the spring sits in) on upside down i must of been in a hurry lol now it rides alot better! and my angles are much much better.



sorry for the crappy pic, its starting to get dark here. also im still waiting for my one inch spacer to arrive, until then im not running a spacer and it seems a little bit higher with just the strut on the 6" setting, compared to my old setup i will get some measurements tomorrow just to find out. 37s will be on soon and im happy with the progress.

 

The lift struts dont matter because it puts you back to the specs of the lift kit- 6"s. If they were 6-8" struts then yes he would have to leave the leveling kit out. But since the shocks can only go up to 6"s it is like putting a leveling kit on a stock truck, specs wise.

Glad you got that figured out because those angles were HORRIBLE.

 

Why are you going to a 1" spacer, the 2" will be just fine??

 

^ no sir, the 2" is too much stress on my upper control arms and cvs because like i said in an earlier post the lower control arm drop brackets are only 5". and i have struts for a true 6" lift so i can only run a 1" safely.

 

glad to see you got it figured out now hurry up and get those 37s on

 

workin on it fx4forlife79!
should i do my alignment before or after the new rubber? i should prob also replace my upper control arms with new ones since im still running my original ones and im at 55k miles lol

 

Gotcha, that sucks they only make it a 5" drop. Also do the alignment after you get the new tires, you would hate for those to wear unevenly.

 

yeah x2 on alignment after you get the tires and yeah thats wierd its only a 5" drop

 

I would change the upper controls seeing that the boots are torn. Ball joints will wear fast w/o any grease in them.