I know I said I was going to write something up about when I got my OME suspension upgrade installed. I got it done before Christmas and with work, Christmas and other stuff occupying my time I put the write-up on the back burner. After my last post i had got the parts and the whole
Let me tell you this was no easy feat for me. I helped my little install his suspension upgrade on his 2012 Frontier a couple months before and did his job in about 4 hours total. Front and rear. Let me tell you that it didn't go as smoothly for the Taco.
After I got the front coilover disassembled and removed, I took my coilovers to my coworker's autobody shop where he has a legit spring compressor. I re-used the coilover top hat because they we going to be about 75 dollars apiece. To hell with that! I'll just reuse them. I did the swap and assembly in less than an hour. Next, I went back home to start putting everything together.
I get home and expected my little brother to help me out since I helped him. He told me at last minute he was going out on Friday with some friends…and this whole time I thought he didn't have any friends. So I went to do the job on my own. Everything went back in just fine and got everything back together. However after, I had just lowered the jack when I realized that my sway bar was way too close to the cup at the bottom of the spring. Shit!
I was pissed because I knew that I didn't align the coil over right. Luckily it was only 1 of the coilovers but I thought I was going to have to disassemble the whole coilover again. After some quick thinking I realized all I would have to do is remove the top 3 screws and rotate it 120 degrees to have coilover aligned correctly. After some finagling I got it aligned and then put back together, installed the wheels and lowered the jack. But at this point it was late at night and I was pretty worn out and pissed off. So I put off the rear for the next day when I knew I would have some help
My little brother and another friend were able to come over and do the rear suspension. I though the rear suspension was going to be a breeze with the help. But with the rear shock to fastener threads being collinear with the shock axis, it made it difficult to remove (see image). Also, I decided to use my crappy adjustable crescent wrench to bolt portion as I removed the nut and stripped the flat surface. I had to just pull off the shock boot and grip the shaft of the shock with some vice grips to hold it in place to remove the nut.
Then after I got the leaf pack assembled with the add-a-leaf, I went to go install the angled shim I placed in between the axle and leaf pack. My little brother shim center hole aligned outside the base of the bolt that holds together the leaf pack. Not mine though! I realized that I was supposed to run the bolt through the shim as well. Shit dammit again!! I had to remove the leaf pack. Again, luckily, it was only on 1 side we were able to do the other side without any problems.
Now that bolt leaf packs were assembled with shims it was time to attach the leaf pack back together to the axle with the u-bolts. As I was tightening the nuts up the threads, the nuts just got really tight. So I had to crank on it with my wrench. There was way too much torque after a couple turns and without there being any preload on the bolt. I look over at my brother tightening the other side and he is having the same problem. We both try to remove the nut and they are both stuck. Must have been some jacked up or out of tolerance threads. I was pissed because they were new! I called the off road shop I bought them from nearby and they said to cut them off and bring them in to replace.
OK, all I had was a hack saw. There was no way in hell those u-bolts were coming off with a hack saw. I went to my neighbor who as a slew of tools but no angle grinder. So I went over to Harbor Freight and bought a $20 angle grinder and removed them. When I exchanged the u-bolts, I made sure I could hand turn the nuts all the way to the base of the threads. Went home an easily installed the u-bolts.
Now I thought it was the home stretch, all I had to do is install the new OME shocks. The bushings on the base of the shock are slight wider than the housing that it mates with on the axle. After pushing and twisting the shock we were finally able to get the both through and after a total 6 hours , the rear suspension is installed!
So now I think all of my troubles are behind me…sadly there was one more thing that I had totally screwed up and could have been much worse if my wife had not disobeyed my orders to drive the truck.
I had my buddy who is a car salesman take my truck to get aligned a couple days after. So in that time, I didn't want it driven too far with positive camber on the front end. Well, my wife calls me to tell me she went out to run some errands and the truck was making some noise when she came to a stop. Shit! What did she screw up now? I told her to turn around and get home.
I took the truck out to drive around the neighborhood and there was a noise as I accelerated and a delay when I stopped. I thought I screwed up the break lines or the abs sensor lines and as for the noise I thought I didn't tighten down something, in the suspension assembly.
So I set up to take it apart and you are probably reading this laughing at me because you already know what it is. As I go to loosen the lug nuts they were already loose! I felt like such a dumbass! I have never had loose lug nuts before so I had no idea what it was supposed to feel like. As I finished the front end coilover install, I was all flustered and pissed off that I forgot to torque down the front lug nuts on both sides! I tightened the best I could before I lowered the jack but I forgot to torque them down good and tight. So I removed the wheels and the bolts looked good and luckily there was no damage or heaven forbid my wife as she was driving around or friend getting into an accident driving it in later to get aligned. After they were tightened down it rode great and my friend's alignment technician had no problem getting it into alignment.
It been a month since it's been complete and I'm very happy with the results. It is stiffer on the road but I think there is a good response and it's not squishy so I believe it will ride great when off road. I can't wait to get it on the trails and really see who this ride performs!
Looks better though even though i don't have good enough pictures to show you. Here's before and after ...
