King 2.5 front coil adjustments (1 Viewer)

[bloc]

Hello all,

with a few thousand miles on my king 2.5 setup as they settled in I needed to adjust for an inch of uneven sag in the front. Ben at filthy told me king recommends removing the coil over for adjustments but it wasn’t absolutely necessary, but didn’t provide details at the time. They do come with a tool for rotating the collars, but with the reservoir hose in the way it is almost useless. I had to come up with a method to adjust things in situ, as there is no way I’m going through the extra work of removing the whole thing.

Here’s the shock as it sits.

The hole left of the Allen lock bolt is where the supplied tool inserts and allows you to rotate the collar. Obviously the hydraulic line is a problem.

So I needed a way to rotate the collar past the clamp bolt section where the holes can’t be drilled as closely. You could put a punch in the edge of the hole tangentially and hammer on that, tearing up these works of art. Not an option.

Enter my near 50# bucket of old bolts I’ve collected over the years, and some unique parts I’ve held on to.

This is a 90109-08234 special bolt used on the turbo boost pipe to intake manifold on a 1kz-te engine in one of my past projects. The smooth shank on it is the right diameter to fit into the holes drilled in the spring perch collar.

A bench vise and hacksaw then gave me this

It is used like this

Held in with the correct flat punch and hammer I could now drive the collar to the left and add preload on that side without incurring any damage. Once past the clamp bolt area the regular tool works, this is about 3/4 of the collar.

I added a bit less than .5” of preload on this side and that got the truck within about 3/8“ of level.

 

[bloc]

The punch I used to rotate it the little bit I needed.

 

[Moby]

Nice work! I swapped the Radflos on my GX on and off a few times (initial install, spring rate swaps, valving change...). Aligning the kdds sway bar brackets sucked until I fab'd a tool for it.

FWIW I always just jacked the front end up to unload the springs as much as possible and then did collar adjustments with the coilovers on the truck. Cleaning the threads and some penetrating oil can help too.

 

[bloc]

Nice work! I swapped the Radflos on my GX on and off a few times (initial install, spring rate swaps, valving change...). Aligning the kdds sway bar brackets sucked until I fab'd a tool for it.

FWIW I always just jacked the front end up to unload the springs as much as possible and then did collar adjustments with the coilovers on the truck. Cleaning the threads and some penetrating oil can help too.

There is a substantial amount of preload on the springs already even with the shocks fully extended and preload collars all the way up, requiring a fair amount of torque to turn them. Otherwise yes it would be much easier to get the adjustment I needed.

I did forget to mention that adjustable pin/hook spanners might be able to get this job done but I’m not sure. You’d almost need a couple of different wrap degrees to get movement in the various positions you have to work with.

 

[duncancsu]

This is a great idea. I’ll have to give it a shot.

 

[onelittlestar]

For anyone else needing to do this, you can get away with slightly loosening the reservoir connection and rotate it out of the way for adjustment. Don’t over loosen the collar or you’ll risk a cross thread and obviously lubricate and clean them before making adjustment.

 

[bloc]

For anyone else needing to do this, you can get away with slightly loosening the reservoir connection and rotate it out of the way for adjustment. Don’t over loosen the collar or you’ll risk a cross thread and obviously lubricate and clean them before making adjustment.

I followed king’s instructions to carefully loosen the other fitting while still charged to get my reservoir hoses oriented correctly and ended up leaking shock oil all over the place. That led to a bunch of work to get the oil replaced.

If you have the ability to bleed down the nitrogen then replace it after the work, not a bad idea. I now have the stuff after the above adventure. But this allows you to easily adjust the collars without loosening or bleeding any lines.

Great advice on the collars though.

 

[Killacaviar]

The 3.0 have a much better design for preload adjustment. It’s done from the bottom.

It’s totally reasonable to move the resi line if you’re careful with two wrenches.

Something to add, the Icon spanner style tool is far superior to the King tool. You can actually work around the line as is and make the adjustment in minutes. I find after the first adjustment and you have the proper placement of the collar In relation to the adjustment holes you can always set yourself up for success after adjustment for the next.

If every king coilover had the bottom adjustment like the 3.0s everyone’s life would be much easier.

 

[DJCloz]

What's the average pre load everyone is doing? I just installed my new King 2.5's with zero pre load and used 700 lbs coils this past weekend. I def need to gain about 1.5'' in the front to get my truck back to my desired stance. My previous setup was bilstein 6112 with 600lbs coils on the highest perch(3" of lift) with a 1/4 spacer on top. I hate to have to remove the coil over multiple times to find my desired ride height.

 

[duncancsu]

What's the average pre load everyone is doing? I just installed my new King 2.5's with zero pre load and used 700 lbs coils this past weekend. I def need to gain about 1.5'' in the front to get my truck back to my desired stance. My previous setup was bilstein 6112 with 600lbs coils on the highest perch(3" of lift) with a 1/4 spacer on top. I hate to have to remove the coil over multiple times to find my desired ride height.

I started with zero preload and slowly working it so things are level. I’ve been working with Filthy Motorsports on this.

 

[onelittlestar]

What's the average pre load everyone is doing? I just installed my new King 2.5's with zero pre load and used 700 lbs coils this past weekend. I def need to gain about 1.5'' in the front to get my truck back to my desired stance. My previous setup was bilstein 6112 with 600lbs coils on the highest perch(3" of lift) with a 1/4 spacer on top. I hate to have to remove the coil over multiple times to find my desired ride height.

You can absolutely adjust the reservoir hose without leaking oil, you may seep a small amount, but if you are leaking oil you loosened it too much. I have done this multiple times with no oil loss, I would not advice bleeding off nitrogen as I don't see how that would make anything easier.

 

[bloc]

I would not advice bleeding off nitrogen as I don't see how that would make anything easier.

0 psi vs 150+ makes a big difference in how badly that oil wants to come out if the nut gets loosened one too many flats.

From looking at pictures having compression adjusters makes orienting the hoses much easier. I don’t have them. I’m decent with a wrench and had a hell of a time holding back the hose with one wrench while tightening with another, partially because there is limited space for the open-end wrench itself. I ended up adding roughly an ounce of oil to get the reservoir piston back to the position I measured from the other front shock. Now with the ability to refill the nitrogen I can bleed it off and there is almost no risk of leaking oil.

All of that said the shock-end of the hose is much easier to get a wrench on with control.. but I’d rather not move the lines if I don’t have to and the little tool I made allows that.

But yes a pin spanner would work better than King’s provided tool.

 

[onelittlestar]

Gotcha, to be fair I haven’t done this on an LC, but 4Runner and FJ. I usually break it twice to learn myself so not trying to give you a hard time

 

[bloc]

not trying to give you a hard time

No worries, we are all learning from each other!

 

[DJCloz]

I just adjusted my coil overs. I was trying to lazy about and see how to do
It whiteout removing the coil overs. But then I found a sweet deal on offer up. I got This Branick coil compressor for a sweet deal. It's a little rusty, but still works great. I went 10 turns on the driver side( 1st side). Put the wheel down. Cycled suspension. Measured, and I gained appx 2,25". I decided I needed a little more. So I went 12 turns on the passenger side. I'm at appx 2-5/8" lift. I'll haveto go back to driver side and make it match at some point. But I'll leave it for another day. This is with 700lbs coils by the way.

 

[linuxgod]

Is there any way to get a spring compressor around the spring while it’s still mounted to the vehicle and the vehicle is on the ground? Or if not a spring compressor possibly some strong wire or ratchet straps? If so you could put the spring compressor on with the vehicle on the ground (spring already partially compressed) then jack up the vehicle the shock will stretch, then you could probably turn the preload collar with your fingers.

I’m assuming there’s no good way to do this on the fronts. I did it in my passenger siderear coil so I could rotate it as the bottom didn’t quite seat correctly in the perch (my error) and I didn’t notice until the truck was back together, at which point it was a PITA to get the coil out on that side. Worked like a charm

 

[DJCloz]

@linuxgod ill give it a shot / toy with it today so I can go get / check my alignment against asap.

 

[bloc]

Is there any way to get a spring compressor around the spring while it’s still mounted to the vehicle and the vehicle is on the ground? Or if not a spring compressor possibly some strong wire or ratchet straps? If so you could put the spring compressor on with the vehicle on the ground (spring already partially compressed) then jack up the vehicle the shock will stretch, then you could probably turn the preload collar with your fingers.

I’m assuming there’s no good way to do this on the fronts. I did it in my passenger siderear coil so I could rotate it as the bottom didn’t quite seat correctly in the perch (my error) and I didn’t notice until the truck was back together, at which point it was a PITA to get the coil out on that side. Worked like a charm

I can’t think of a way, at least with commonly available tools. The spring mount on the frame wraps around the top of the assembly enough that it would need to be a very compact tool for clearance.

And, at least when they were clean, with the suspension dropped out it wasn’t something you’d do by hand but the collar did spin without issue using the tool, as long as that hydraulic line could be dealt with. I haven’t tried messing with them now that they’ve been fed a diet of dirt and water and innocent-but-now-very-dead flying insects.

 

[onelittlestar]

I think it’s doable, but not ideal. I have a set of Shankly HD compressors that don’t make me super nervous to use, but it’s a very tight fit and likely wouldn’t take me much longer to just remove the coilover. I’ll see if I can get them to fit when I swap on the new wheels and report back.

 

[DJCloz]

I just redid my my driver side guys. I'm happy to report that I did it in 23 minutes! I was previously doing about 1 hour to 1:10 per side. I think the key was practice makes perfect. I knew exactly what I needed and how to go about it. I'm feeling hot if anyone wants to come over for a quick adjustment! Lol I cycled suspension, tightened kdss and measured. Left and right sides are identical height now! Now to dial in the adjuster settings! I'm thinking I'm going on the firmer side. Testing and adjusting will continue tomorrow!