Icon Vehicle Dynamics 2.5" Coilover Rebuild

Icon Vehicle Dynamics 2.5 Rebuild

This is a writeup on how to rebuild your 2.5" coilovers, specifically Icons. These are from my 99 4Runner, so should be the exact same as 1st gen Tacoma's as well. Disclaimer, I have NO experience with anything like this. This is a first for me, but I love learning how to do stuff, and would rather pay myself to learn than pay someone to do it for me.

Parts:
Here is everything I ordered from Icon. Most of you won't need a new top hat or new top hat bolts, however mine were over torqued, and one sheared at the head. I had to use the grinder to remove the top hat, and get the bolt out. Bummer.

EDIT: 303 Shock Services makes a kit for the lower bearings, which includes new misalingment spacers and snap rings. I would highly recommend going this route. https://www.303shockservices.com/product-page/2-5-coilover-lower-mount-replacement-bearing-kit

Tools:
Here is a breakdown of the tools I used to do the rebuild.

• Full socket/wrench set
• Spring compressor
• Vise (w/ soft jaw set!)
• Brass punch
• Hammer
• Flat-head screwdrivers
• A sharp pick
• Lots of rags
• Air compressor

Part 1 - Disassembly of the Shock:
Here goes nothing!

1. Remove from the vehicle. This is very straightforward, remove three bolts from top and through bolt from the bottom. Repeat for the other side.

2. Remove the springs. I didn't take any pictures because I was trying to not die while using the O'Reilly's spring compressor.

3. Remove the top hat. Hopefully you have some 12-pts, since this is a 12-pt bolt.

At this point, you're ready for instructions. This is where I started taking pictures. I set up my new vice in my shed, grabbed a lamp and went to town:

4. Set shock in vice with shaft facing upwards. Remove the set screw using an Allen wrench.


5. Using a hammer and punch, turn the cap until loose, and finish unscrewing by hand.

EDIT: Use a brass punch to avoid marring the aluminum cap. I was cheap and dumb, so I used steel punches.




6. Remove the nitrogen port until nitrogen begins to bleed. Once all the pressure is bled, fully remove the port and set aside.




7. This part was tough. You need to remove the C-clip from above the seal head in order to remove the seal head. It requires a decent amount of force, so I used a ratchet strap. Once the C-clip has no pressure on it, use a flat blade screwdriver to pry it out. Be careful not to let it fly away.






8. Remove the C-clip and remove the ratchet strap.


9. Everything I read said to pull slowly... I tried and mine would NOT come out easily. Quite a few yanks later, and she popped out! It felt pressurized still, so I'm assuming some nitrogen had leaked past the seals and into the fluid chamber.


10. Dirtyyyyy oil. It was charcoal black. Dump this into your waste oil bin.


11. Comparison of the standard and extended travel top out spacers.


12. Using your air compressor, shoot compressed air into the nitrogen fill port hole, and pop the Internal Floating Piston (IFP) out of the top of the shock body. I used my Viair 88P portable compressor, with one of the attachments and wrapped it in a couple of layers of electrical tape to create a tight fit.


13. Set the shock body aside, and place your shock shaft in the vice. Remove the top nut.




14. Remove the rebound shims, piston, compression shims, and top out washers. Pay very close attention to the order! I used the C-clip to keep everything lined up.


15. Remove the top out spacer and piston head. Set aside.


16. You're now down to the bare shock shaft. Time to clean things up with some fine-grit sandpaper! Note the small amount of pitting on the shaft.






17. Polish the shock shaft using the above sheets. Pictures are after 600, 1000, and 1500 grit respectively.

 

Part 2 - Replacing the Spherical Bearings

1. Place the shock shaft sideways in the vice. Do NOT clamp it on the shaft, just clamp on the aluminum below the shaft.


2. Remove the Spirolock on either side of the bearing. Not the small tab that allows you to place a flat-blade below it and pop it out.




3. Time to press the bearing out. I tried a variety of techniques, but the hammer worked better than anything else.




I used the hammer to finish the job. Notice a broken Spirolock. I hammered it through from this side, then removed the clip from the back side.


4. Repeat this for the shock body side. Same deal here, one broken clip, and again removed from the back side.


5. Install a single Spirolock on one side of the body, after cleaning it up.


6. Install the new bearing from the opposite side. I placed them in the freezer for a couple of hours, this definitely helped. I also used heat as needed until the bearing was fully seated. Seat it against the Spirolock, and install the Spirolock on the other side. I used a combination of the vice, and hammering.




7. Repeat the bearing install procedure for the shaft side. The vice chewed up the aluminum pretty good... Oh well!

 

Part 3 - Reassembly of the Shock

1. Remove the upper most seal in the piston head. I used a homemade pick, made from an old Philips-head screwdriver.

EDIT: I was a broke-a** college kid when I made this thread. Looking back now, I should have just bought a set of picks instead of hacking this thing up. It was dangerous and hard to use. Here's a quality set that I would recommend:

TEKTON Mini Pick and Hook Set (4-Piece) | 6943

https://www.amzn.com/B000NPPBQK/





2. Remove the inner most seal. Note the way it comes out. The open side of the seal faces down in this picture.

3. Remove the seal from the outside of the seal head. Clean up the piston with soap and water and let dry.


4. Remove the Teflon ring (not pictured) and thick seal from the IFP. Clean up the IFP with soap and water.


5. Now install the new seals. I started with the inner most seal. Make sure these are at least room temperature! Mine were left out overnight and rock hard until they warmed up. I also found it helpful to dip in shock oil first. This one I had to come up from the back side, and remember, open side of the seal faces down.

EDIT: Clean the heck out of this thing after you get the seals installed. DO NOT INSTALL ON THE SHAFT WITH THIS MUCH DEBRIS. I cleaned after taking pictures.


6. Install the new upper seal.


7. Install the retaining cap removed in Step 5 of Part 1, place the outside seal, and install on the shock shaft.


8. Install the extended travel top out spacer above the seal head. The shorter one is the extended travel.


9. Clean up the shims to the best of your abilities, and reinstall. Make sure they go back on the same way they came off.


10. Reinstall the top nut. Use some blue Locktite on the threads to keep it on there. Torque to 35 ft-lbs.


11. Set the shaft aside, and place the shock body in the vice. Install the IFP. Set the IFP depth by pushing it down with the shaft.




12. Remove the shaft once depth is set, and install the new nitrogen port. Torque to 10 ft-lbs.




13. Time for clean shock oil. This level in the picture was way too much. I spilled over a ton of it.


14. Install the completed shaft. If oil doesn't spill over the sides, you didn't put in enough. Clearly I had plenty! Tap the body as it slides down to burp out air bubbles.




15. Grab you ratchet strap once again, and compress the shaft enough to install the C-clip.


16. Reinstall the C-clip, and reinstall the cap. Tighten down with the hammer and punch. In this picture, the C-clip is not fully seated.

EDIT: The C-clip is not properly seated in this picture. I tried to tighten by hand but obviously I could not get it all the way. Once they were recharged with nitrogen, the seal head snapped into place, and I tightened the cap down properly.




17. Reinstall the set screw. Again, use blue Locktite.

EDIT: Do not install the set screw until the shocks have been charged with nitrogen! As this picture shows, the seal head was not completely seated against the C-clip. Once charged, the head seated, and I had to retighten the cap and set screw.


18. Take the shocks to a motorcycle shop, and have the nitrogen recharged to 250 psi.
19. Reinstall the springs and top hat.
20. Reinstall on vehicle anddd done!!!

 

Sweet!

 

Great detail man. Quality pictures! Much greatful you put in time for this write-up. Five stars!

 

Thanks you sir. It was a fun project, and I figured others might benefit from my experiences... so I slapped it into one of the longest writeups I've ever seen! Haha

 

Oh I'm sure it'll help others.

Did you polish inside the shock body tube? Or did that seem overkill?
What was the mileage on coilovers? I bet Montana isn't too kind on them...

 

Thanks for the write up. I may have to accomplish this myself on mine.

 

Wow! That is an awesome write up!!!! I have an old set of kings I’m wanting to rebuild. I’m also thinking about doing the Icons that are on the truck as well. This will be extremely helpful!

How’d you know if you needed new bearings on the ends of the shocks? My Icons only have about 25k miles so I’m guessing I should just need new seals, oil, and the ext travel spacer.

The kings, though are higher miles and may need more parts

 

Great writeup! Should help a lot of folks. One thing that others may correct me on because I haven't rebuilt icon before but I have rebuilt/ revalved many motorcycle mono shocks. When you put the shaft back in the new oil, you want to pump it several times to make sure you get all the air out. Down fast, up slow making sure you never pull the valve/ shim stack out of the oil. if you do, start over bleeding the assembly. Usually have to top off the oil several times before done. Again, great write up and thanks for taking the time!

 

Subbed. Great work!

 

@MattJakobs

 

Wow, this thread took off a bit since I logged in last! Nice!

I did not polish the inside of the shock body. It looked fantastic when I pulled everything out so I left it be. I did make sure to flush the housing with clean oil once or twice before replacing the IFP and filling the oil.

Also, I was probably around 35k miles? They were beyond overdue. The nitrogen charge had leaked past the IFP and into the oil, so it was a bitch to get the C-clip out. And you're right, Montana is extremely hard on them!

Absolutely my friend. It's not near as difficult as it may seem, so don't be afraid to have at it!

Thank you! Hopefully this writeup should be pretty helpful for the Kings as well as the Icons! The bearings are supposed to be nice and tight. 3 out of the 4 were extremely loose and sloppy so I knew it was time. Plus Montana is pretty killer on bearings... Better safe than sorry! I was probably around 35k miles at the time. Will be doing them under 30k for sure next time.

Thanks for the reply, that is a great point! This isn't something that I had heard of, but would probably make bleeding the air out a bit easier. I simply let the set the shaft and let it slide on its own. Probably took 5 minutes and let out lots of air. Then I tapped on the side with a mallet for a couple minutes and got out the remaining bubbles. I figured that was good enough, but sounds like your way is pretty fool proof!

Right on, thank you sir!

 

Sweet man. So I took on this task today.

I had 7 months and 1500 hard dirt miles on a recent rebuilt. I noticed my pass. side leaking recently and I figured if I'm that hard on the shocks I need to figure out how to do it myself, if not only for the $$$ but also the downtime...

Please don't mind me for my critiquing.

1) I purged the nitogen as step one after the shocks had been removed and the coils also. (I read a post where the c-clip can crack and send the assembled shaft along with the pressurized IFP and all the shock fluid in-between in a 30ft radius once the shock body cap was removed. I didn't want to be a part of all that mess.)

2) I polished the shafts after removing the old sphereical bearings and replacing with new ones, so not to ding the freshly polished shafts un-nessessarily.

My bearings were wasted on my driver's side, all wonky after 7k miles!

I'm giving these a try; supposed to be made a tad bit better.

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/fkb-fkssx10t

Thanks again for the write-up, went without a hitch!

BTW, do you know what the little brown o-ring is for? I figured it's a viton seal for the nitrogen port? Not sure why viton would be of use here....

 

No worries, I love to hear the critiques!

1. Probably didn't hurt anything at all taking the nitrogen charge out immediately, that's smart. I had watched another video that showed the nitrogen port being removed after the coils were removed, so I went the same way. Didn't end up actually working since most of the nitrogen had leaked into the oil side of the shock body, and removing the port didn't relieve enough pressure.

2. I realized as soon as I started with the bearings that it was stupid to have already done the shafts... Oversight on my part! I polished them again one more time after replacing the bearings just to make sure.

3. That little o-ring had me sweating bullets for a minute afterwards. I was assuming the same thing... but I still have no idea why it's included!!

Thanks for following my writeup man, and thank you for the tips! I really appreciate it!

 

Great write up, I'll be doing this to my own Icon reservoir shocks soon.

 

Well done. Great write up. This will be helpful when I need to rebuild mine eventually.

 

Thanks for reading! I know it's a bit congested, but I wanted to be as detailed as possible with the pictures. Overall, the rebuild is fun, just make sure to take your time and appreciate your hard work!

 

Really great write up. I have a feeling I'll be doing this sooner than later. Subd for when that time comes

 

Thanks for reading! It can be a bit of a bitch at times, but I found the rebuild to be extremely rewarding when I finished.