Finished installing some mini packs I bought off eBay last night. I paid $122 shipped I think for the kit, it was a full 3" advertised lift, and that's right what I got. The look of the truck is fantastic, and it doesn't seem to ride any different. Steering wheel is cocked to the right now, so I'll need to adjust that sooner than I had wanted to do the tie rods, but no biggie.
The truck originally started at 39" front and 43" rear. Front is at 42 1/8", so it's right at about an inch up in the back. I can't get over how much higher it is in the front, 3" is substantial. I guess I'll end up putting 33's on it after all when these wear out.
Install took about 5 hours, with 2 hours of that dedicated to getting the track bar reinstalled. I have some photos below of the process, after the before/after picture. If you have any questions, let me know.
Biggest key points about this project:
I'm fairly mechanically inclined. I haven't had a shop do a job for me in around 5/7 years, and even then, only because a vehicle was under warranty. However, all the work I've done has been on cars, SUV's, etc. Nothing prepared me for this job as I've never worked on something this heavy duty. I don't know how heavy the front axle is, but it's got to be in the 200lb range. Getting new 12t jack stands from the 'Harbor was a necessity, and having a bigger/longer torque wrench to make torquing the new ubolts would have been fantastic. It was a struggle to use mine, and my legs are still feeling the bracing on the tire I used them for to get enough leverage.
A easy set of instructions is this. Jack up truck by using the axle and a bunch of stuff as a spacer. Use gigantic jack stands to put on each of the frame rails under the truck toward the front, where a slight bend occurs around the firewall area. Take the wheels off both sides. Take the bottom shock mount off, and bend the shock out of the way. (Leave top mounted) You'll need to take the track bar mount bracket off the driver's side, 3 bolts. I left the track bar connected and torqued as I don't have anything that can do 400ft/lbs. With the track bar off, disconnect the two main sway bar nuts that hold the sway bar to the end links. Now take the u bolts off. You can use a clamp to hold them together, but I didn't and it wasn't that big of a deal at the end. As you do this step, you want a jack under the axle on the side that you are doing. The side that you're not doing, just loosen up, but make sure that the front and back u bolt is equally lose. If not, the axle will rotate and it will make it tough, the back has a tendency to drop more than the front as there is more weight on it. So, take off the u bolts on whatever side you're doing first. Make sure there is a tiny bit of tension on the bottom of the axle from the jack. All that should be finished up now, and you should remove the lower shock mount from the leaf spring. Use an impact to get that bolt out. Note, this bolt is the one you will have to cut later on in the install. So, take your mini leaf, lower the axle, and put the mini leaf on to the bottom of the spring, put the bolt up from the bottom to the top. Now put the nut on the top, and spin it down. Once it's pretty tight, cut off the excess of the bolt. Now tighten the bolt down, and you'll have about 1/16" of an inch of excess above it. Put the shock mount back on top. This shock top area is the reason that you have to cut this bolt. Slowly raise the axle up, and there is a small hole on top that fits around the bolt that is on the bottom of the spring pack. This is the small round nut head. Threaded should be on the top. Raise everything up, and tighten the ubolts. Mine were torqued to 130 ft / lbs, but just snug for now is fine, and later on you'll torque it after its on the ground settling. Put the lower shock back on. The shock is supposed to be torqued to 76ft/lbs. Do the same thing for the other side. The passenger side took half the time as the driver's for me. Probably because I knew what I was doing, and it was less time. Things that really helped were a set of deep well sockets for my impact gun. This would have taken an extra 4 hours if not for those. Now you can reconnect the sway bar. This is wicked easy. Just use the jack to level the axle to a place where you can tighten in the nuts, and torque them puppies to 86ft/lbs. The hardest part was getting the track bar to install correctly. There is no secret here, it's just hard. I used the jack with about an 18" 2x4, pushing up on the track bar. It was hard. I moved the truck a couple inches forward and back. That seemed to help a lot. Not sure how. Make sure that you have this order, bolt, track bar bracket, spacer, then frame. Spacer is obvious to be between frame and bracket. These bolts are torqued to 150ft/lbs. I did 130 because I didn't feel comfortable with that, these bolts aren't that big. Now you can use the jack and 18" 2x4 again to push up on the inside area of the bracket, and get that small bolt back in. I did that one to the same 130ft/lbs. Wheels go back on. 165ft/lbs. You're done. Enjoy awesomeness. Prepare for your steering wheel to be cocked about 1/4 turn right. I need new tie rods, so I'm going to do that in a couple weeks and fix the steering wheel then. It's not hard, but I just don't want to straighten it twice. It's easy, but it's a lot of turning a quarter, going to far, going back, going a little bit, etc. Not something you want to do for fun when there's companies manufacturing beer for you to drink. Way more enjoyable way to pass time.
On to the pics. Post up questions if you have them. This was written kind of last second, so I have no problem helping anyone else do this task. I'm sure I'll get more help here than the small bit I've put out. I'll also take a picture of the spacers installed on the track bar, and add that to this to explain that step.
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The truck originally started at 39" front and 43" rear. Front is at 42 1/8", so it's right at about an inch up in the back. I can't get over how much higher it is in the front, 3" is substantial. I guess I'll end up putting 33's on it after all when these wear out.
Install took about 5 hours, with 2 hours of that dedicated to getting the track bar reinstalled. I have some photos below of the process, after the before/after picture. If you have any questions, let me know.
Biggest key points about this project:
I'm fairly mechanically inclined. I haven't had a shop do a job for me in around 5/7 years, and even then, only because a vehicle was under warranty. However, all the work I've done has been on cars, SUV's, etc. Nothing prepared me for this job as I've never worked on something this heavy duty. I don't know how heavy the front axle is, but it's got to be in the 200lb range. Getting new 12t jack stands from the 'Harbor was a necessity, and having a bigger/longer torque wrench to make torquing the new ubolts would have been fantastic. It was a struggle to use mine, and my legs are still feeling the bracing on the tire I used them for to get enough leverage.
A easy set of instructions is this. Jack up truck by using the axle and a bunch of stuff as a spacer. Use gigantic jack stands to put on each of the frame rails under the truck toward the front, where a slight bend occurs around the firewall area. Take the wheels off both sides. Take the bottom shock mount off, and bend the shock out of the way. (Leave top mounted) You'll need to take the track bar mount bracket off the driver's side, 3 bolts. I left the track bar connected and torqued as I don't have anything that can do 400ft/lbs. With the track bar off, disconnect the two main sway bar nuts that hold the sway bar to the end links. Now take the u bolts off. You can use a clamp to hold them together, but I didn't and it wasn't that big of a deal at the end. As you do this step, you want a jack under the axle on the side that you are doing. The side that you're not doing, just loosen up, but make sure that the front and back u bolt is equally lose. If not, the axle will rotate and it will make it tough, the back has a tendency to drop more than the front as there is more weight on it. So, take off the u bolts on whatever side you're doing first. Make sure there is a tiny bit of tension on the bottom of the axle from the jack. All that should be finished up now, and you should remove the lower shock mount from the leaf spring. Use an impact to get that bolt out. Note, this bolt is the one you will have to cut later on in the install. So, take your mini leaf, lower the axle, and put the mini leaf on to the bottom of the spring, put the bolt up from the bottom to the top. Now put the nut on the top, and spin it down. Once it's pretty tight, cut off the excess of the bolt. Now tighten the bolt down, and you'll have about 1/16" of an inch of excess above it. Put the shock mount back on top. This shock top area is the reason that you have to cut this bolt. Slowly raise the axle up, and there is a small hole on top that fits around the bolt that is on the bottom of the spring pack. This is the small round nut head. Threaded should be on the top. Raise everything up, and tighten the ubolts. Mine were torqued to 130 ft / lbs, but just snug for now is fine, and later on you'll torque it after its on the ground settling. Put the lower shock back on. The shock is supposed to be torqued to 76ft/lbs. Do the same thing for the other side. The passenger side took half the time as the driver's for me. Probably because I knew what I was doing, and it was less time. Things that really helped were a set of deep well sockets for my impact gun. This would have taken an extra 4 hours if not for those. Now you can reconnect the sway bar. This is wicked easy. Just use the jack to level the axle to a place where you can tighten in the nuts, and torque them puppies to 86ft/lbs. The hardest part was getting the track bar to install correctly. There is no secret here, it's just hard. I used the jack with about an 18" 2x4, pushing up on the track bar. It was hard. I moved the truck a couple inches forward and back. That seemed to help a lot. Not sure how. Make sure that you have this order, bolt, track bar bracket, spacer, then frame. Spacer is obvious to be between frame and bracket. These bolts are torqued to 150ft/lbs. I did 130 because I didn't feel comfortable with that, these bolts aren't that big. Now you can use the jack and 18" 2x4 again to push up on the inside area of the bracket, and get that small bolt back in. I did that one to the same 130ft/lbs. Wheels go back on. 165ft/lbs. You're done. Enjoy awesomeness. Prepare for your steering wheel to be cocked about 1/4 turn right. I need new tie rods, so I'm going to do that in a couple weeks and fix the steering wheel then. It's not hard, but I just don't want to straighten it twice. It's easy, but it's a lot of turning a quarter, going to far, going back, going a little bit, etc. Not something you want to do for fun when there's companies manufacturing beer for you to drink. Way more enjoyable way to pass time.
On to the pics. Post up questions if you have them. This was written kind of last second, so I have no problem helping anyone else do this task. I'm sure I'll get more help here than the small bit I've put out. I'll also take a picture of the spacers installed on the track bar, and add that to this to explain that step.
