Hi all,
I've fairly recently acquired my first FJ, a root beer brown/white 72 40-series and am trying to install a new OME lift 2.5" lift kit. This is my first time working with springs on any vehicle, and so please excuse the noob questions.
I'm currently working on the front springs. For a couple reasons, I only wanted to do one side at a time. I'm working on a dirt surface and feel uncomfortable supporting the whole front of the vehicle on jackstands alone, and maybe more importantly, I wanted to leave one side so I could use it as a reference in putting the new spring on the other side.
The problem I'm having is that I can't match up the dimple in the front spring to the spring perch on the axle. The axle sits about 3/4" too far forward when I jack the spring up to meet the perch. I know I have the correct orientation in the spring, with the yellow mark on the rear facing end. I first had oriented the spring in reverse, and it wasn't remotely close to matching with the spring perch.
In reading some of the other posts on this subject, this seems to be the toughest part of the job, lining these up. I see that some people used a winch strap to pull the axle back and forth.
My question is - do I have to do both sides (driver/passenger) at once in order to have the freedom of movement to adjust the front axle back and forth? Or should I be able to pivot the axle with only the one side free?
Up until this point, the job has been fairly straightforward - I only had to cut one of the two small bolts on the fixed spring mount. The front springs I'm removing are aftermarket and I have no idea when they were installed, but they're not rusted much at all. The rears could be a different story. The steering dampener has been repositioned from stock, I believe, and my OME steering dampener has too short of a throw to fit. That's a bummer, but I'll figure out something to do with it.
Thanks for the time taken in any responses!
Regards,
JP
I've fairly recently acquired my first FJ, a root beer brown/white 72 40-series and am trying to install a new OME lift 2.5" lift kit. This is my first time working with springs on any vehicle, and so please excuse the noob questions.
I'm currently working on the front springs. For a couple reasons, I only wanted to do one side at a time. I'm working on a dirt surface and feel uncomfortable supporting the whole front of the vehicle on jackstands alone, and maybe more importantly, I wanted to leave one side so I could use it as a reference in putting the new spring on the other side.
The problem I'm having is that I can't match up the dimple in the front spring to the spring perch on the axle. The axle sits about 3/4" too far forward when I jack the spring up to meet the perch. I know I have the correct orientation in the spring, with the yellow mark on the rear facing end. I first had oriented the spring in reverse, and it wasn't remotely close to matching with the spring perch.
In reading some of the other posts on this subject, this seems to be the toughest part of the job, lining these up. I see that some people used a winch strap to pull the axle back and forth.
My question is - do I have to do both sides (driver/passenger) at once in order to have the freedom of movement to adjust the front axle back and forth? Or should I be able to pivot the axle with only the one side free?
Up until this point, the job has been fairly straightforward - I only had to cut one of the two small bolts on the fixed spring mount. The front springs I'm removing are aftermarket and I have no idea when they were installed, but they're not rusted much at all. The rears could be a different story. The steering dampener has been repositioned from stock, I believe, and my OME steering dampener has too short of a throw to fit. That's a bummer, but I'll figure out something to do with it.
Thanks for the time taken in any responses!
Regards,
JP
