DetroitStyle
Club Member
Well, since it's the only thing I'm working on these days, it gets a project thread!
The day I brought it home for $1500
As you can see, the rear did sag a bit, so I started thinking "Boy, modding your daily driver sounds like a good idea!" Then my front shock started squeaking pretty badly, so I decided it was time. However, this IS a budget DD and I wasn't about to go crazy and spend $1000+ or do a solid axle swap. So the decision was made... Land Cruiser coils in the back, 1.5" ball joint spacers up front, and new shocks all the way around. Total cost? About $400.
The parts:
Unfortunately I didn't take a ton of pics of the rear install, but it was a LOT more of a bitch than I thought. 165k miles and 20 midwest winters made for some rusty crap under there. You can see when I first started working on it... not much under the truck
Then, after all was said and done, a lot of crap under the truck!
Since I didn't take pictures, the process was
1. Remove shocks
2. Compress stock springs
3. Use a 2x4 to get several and push the lowers down and wiggle the springs out
4. Compress new springs
5. Wiggle them in
6. Uncompress springs
7. Realize that you put the spring compressors on a spot that won't let you get them off without running into frame, LCAs, etc
8. Curse, rewind and repeat
6 hours later, it looked like this.
At that point we called it a day. I was at my in-law's house and the dog had been locked up for 8 hours and if I didn't get home, I was in for a mess. So the wife and I drove home in her truck and left the 4Runner.
I got there this morning and started on the front. Should go MUCH smoother, right? Just undo a few bolts, put the spacer in, swap the shocks and we're done. 2 hours... tops.
Sign #1 that we were in trouble, it took us a HOUR to get the front wheels off. Fuckers were FROZEN to the hubs. We beat on the tires with a hammer. We lowered it back down with the lugnuts off and drove the truck back and forth a few feet. We turned the wheels. We put a 4x4 against the rim and hit the 4x4 with a bigger hammer.
Finally, we used a 2x6 with a bit of angle and hit it from the inside and after dozens of hits, it finally broke loose. Fuck! Already sweating, mad, and ready for a beer and we're barely anywhere!
All of the directions I read ahead of time, said just pound out the stock studs from the balljoint spacer:
Yeah, these fuckers
They would NOT budge. Apparently directions are geared towards California Toyota owners who can remove bolts by hand after 20 years.
So we decided to use a pickle fork and pop the balljoints out and take them to a local mechanic to get pressed out.
You can see, it didn't go as planned. Destroyed the ball joint. So I had to order new balljoints. Picking them up tomorrow.
The balljoints breaking kind of limited how much further we could go, but I did manage to grind out the UCAs to fit the spacers. Looked pretty damn clean when I was done.
I'll have pics of that tomorrow.... but here's my F-I-L grinding away at the other side...
So right now, I'm exhausted, frustrated and scraped up and sore... but I figure we're 75% done. Tomorrow SHOULD just involve putting the new stuff in to replace the old. I think it SHOULD take 2 hours, so I'm planning on 6...
More details to come!
The day I brought it home for $1500

As you can see, the rear did sag a bit, so I started thinking "Boy, modding your daily driver sounds like a good idea!" Then my front shock started squeaking pretty badly, so I decided it was time. However, this IS a budget DD and I wasn't about to go crazy and spend $1000+ or do a solid axle swap. So the decision was made... Land Cruiser coils in the back, 1.5" ball joint spacers up front, and new shocks all the way around. Total cost? About $400.
The parts:

Unfortunately I didn't take a ton of pics of the rear install, but it was a LOT more of a bitch than I thought. 165k miles and 20 midwest winters made for some rusty crap under there. You can see when I first started working on it... not much under the truck

Then, after all was said and done, a lot of crap under the truck!

Since I didn't take pictures, the process was
1. Remove shocks
2. Compress stock springs
3. Use a 2x4 to get several and push the lowers down and wiggle the springs out
4. Compress new springs
5. Wiggle them in
6. Uncompress springs
7. Realize that you put the spring compressors on a spot that won't let you get them off without running into frame, LCAs, etc
8. Curse, rewind and repeat
6 hours later, it looked like this.



At that point we called it a day. I was at my in-law's house and the dog had been locked up for 8 hours and if I didn't get home, I was in for a mess. So the wife and I drove home in her truck and left the 4Runner.
I got there this morning and started on the front. Should go MUCH smoother, right? Just undo a few bolts, put the spacer in, swap the shocks and we're done. 2 hours... tops.
Sign #1 that we were in trouble, it took us a HOUR to get the front wheels off. Fuckers were FROZEN to the hubs. We beat on the tires with a hammer. We lowered it back down with the lugnuts off and drove the truck back and forth a few feet. We turned the wheels. We put a 4x4 against the rim and hit the 4x4 with a bigger hammer.
Finally, we used a 2x6 with a bit of angle and hit it from the inside and after dozens of hits, it finally broke loose. Fuck! Already sweating, mad, and ready for a beer and we're barely anywhere!
All of the directions I read ahead of time, said just pound out the stock studs from the balljoint spacer:
Yeah, these fuckers

They would NOT budge. Apparently directions are geared towards California Toyota owners who can remove bolts by hand after 20 years.
So we decided to use a pickle fork and pop the balljoints out and take them to a local mechanic to get pressed out.
You can see, it didn't go as planned. Destroyed the ball joint. So I had to order new balljoints. Picking them up tomorrow.

The balljoints breaking kind of limited how much further we could go, but I did manage to grind out the UCAs to fit the spacers. Looked pretty damn clean when I was done.

I'll have pics of that tomorrow.... but here's my F-I-L grinding away at the other side...

So right now, I'm exhausted, frustrated and scraped up and sore... but I figure we're 75% done. Tomorrow SHOULD just involve putting the new stuff in to replace the old. I think it SHOULD take 2 hours, so I'm planning on 6...
More details to come!