Hiccups and problems installing suspension on 05 OR

Just got done installing my suspension on my 05 offroad, took me Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday night.

This was my first time ever installing suspension on anything, and I had alot of problems, so rather than do a how to write up, this is a what not to do write up to hopefully save someone else the headaches.


To start with the front which I did Friday night and Saturday morning.

I started taking everything apart and went to remove the Sway bar, I noticed one of the 14mm bolts was hanging loose for the bushing. I tried to remove it and it just spun... turns out the weld nut in the frame had rusted and broke loose. So I unscrewed the opposite bolt. Took the sawzall to the bracket, and pulled the swaybar and bushing out. I ziptied the bracket to the frame and am driving with a hopefully temporary Sway bar delete now.



When putting my shocks in it seemed like they didn't fit. Just had to put my whole bodyweight on the LCAs and use a mallet for encouragement.

Wasn't able to torque the 3 top hat bolts on the bilstein 5100s which obnoxiously came in 15mm buying a top hat from KYB, asking the shop that does the alignment to get them tomorrow.

On the topic of shocks, a few days prior I rented a tool from autozone to install ome 885s on the bilstein 5100s. The tool was not big enought to fit around the spring circumference. I ended up having to take the shocks to a shop which cost $160.

I got the UCAs in no problem taking a sawzall to the old bolt. I was using supreme suspension UCAs, they would not line up with the steering knuckle no matter how hard I tried. Dummy mistake, the uniballs were super tight and I literally had to take them and force them into the right position on a work bench.



The front seemed bad.... until I got to the rear.


In the rear I easily pulled the shocks out by pulling the sheath down and clamping onto the strut bar with some vice grips. All my leaf spring bolts came out with some finesse. I didn't even try the ubolts, just took a sawzall to them. I suggest doing this.

The problems started with removing the old unbolted springs. I only had 3ton jacks and practically had to set the diff on the ground to finally get the springs off the axel, this tilted the axel back at an angle and put the driveline at a funny angle, hopefully I didn't screw anything up to bad doing this. It took hours to get the springs out but with hammers and pry bars I managed.

Would've been nice to have a second set of hands.

The I spent hours trying to get the new springs back in. Jacking the diff up, and angling the axel. I was able to eventually line up the shackles.
From there I had to fight with the axel to get the center pins to line up. Using straps between axel and springs, and playing musical chairs with the oem bottle jack, 2 jack stands, and a floor jack. Eventually I got them in.

Now I had to align the front eyebolt. I read a couple guides on here that said to do that last. DO NOT do things this way. Align the front eye bolt first!!!



I ended up running to harbor freight sunday morning and buying 2x 6ton jack stands. This was a game changer and I couldve probably finished Saturday had I had this.
I ended up undoing everything I did the day before removing the loose ubolts and picking the springs off the axel so I could loosen the shackle. From there with wd40, hammers, swear words, and pry bars, I was able to lay on my back moving the axel and rear spring with my legs while I used my hand and a punch to align the eyebolt.

I then had to beat the $70 dobinson greasable eyebolts on the zerk with a hammer to get them in place while I used the punch as a slave pin.

Leaf springs should really be a 2man job, would've been much easier.

ubolts I bought were too long for me to drive into place so I cut them shorter with an angle grinder.

Shocks went on easy.

i had unbolted the abs and emergency brake lines to prevent stress on them during the install. On the passenger side the bolt for the ebrake to front leaf hanger head sheered off during removal.
I had a bracket kit to extend all the brake lines and just ended up using the top hole (the notched bracket hooks into) on my extension piece with a bolt I had laying around.

I was doing the driverside when I realized I had assembled that icon rxt leafpack backwards (I took leads completely apart to swap the leaf for Stage 2)

I had to remove my ubolts, low strut bolt.. and take the leaf out, and turn it around. Fortunately it was the second from the bottom. The most difficult part was lining the axel up again
I ended up using a strap between the two springs and manhandling the axel.
Rule of thumb... make sure everything is assembled right before putting it in.



I went to reattach my ubolts, if you recall I chopped them, I could not get the bolts to thread back on nor did I have a die for those threads. So I took a trip to autozone and bought a ubolts. Since I have mix matched bolts now I plan on buying a flip kit and some bumpstops in the future.

I failed to mention the raising and lowering the spare tire throughout all of this to reach the shackle bolts. just take it off.

I took it for a ride, so far so good, alignment Monday.

Bilstein 5100s, with ome 885s, icon rxt stage 2... I got alot more than the intended 2.5-3" lifts which goes to show how bad the springs were on my 05 with 98k miles.

 

I too broke off a sway bar weld nut when doing mine, are you going to be running a sway bar relocation bracket? I tack welded a nut to a square piece of steel and stuck it into the frame through one of the holes in the side and fished it over the hole, that’s probably going to be the easiest solution to your problem

 

The more you wrench the easier this sort of thing will be. Having the right tools, and big enough hammers, and experience can make a job like that into an afternoon. With major help by not being in the rust belt, if you are then good luck!

Keep at it, it gets easier the more you do it.

 

Yeah I was planning on doing a relocate when I get it back on, been driving it without the away bar for sometime now and it actually rides pretty nice, but safety wise I need to get it on again. I appreciate the tip, that sounds like the best option here

 

Thanks man, I definitely learned alot from this experience and gained more confidence in what I can do with this truck.
This truck went from Cali to Illinois where I grabbed it at 70kish miles, got it out of Illinois after 6months and brought down to San Antonio. It's got cancer but hoping the climate here slows it, I plan on getting needle pick and some undercoat and spending a weekend under it here eventually.