Cois spring aspect
How difficult/easy was the coil spring aspect of the installation? Sounds like you went ahead and did it at your house.
Yep, did it at the house. The first setback was dismantling the front coilovers to allow reuse of the OEM top plate. The instructions give all sorts of dire warnings about the dangers of compressed springs, and in retrospect the extra $150 to have Sonoran Steel preassemble with new stock plates would have made the front suspension a 2 hour job (or less). I saved my pennies and paid the price in other ways.
The top nuts on the shocks were frozen solid on all four corners of my truck. After removing the front coilovers, I managed to break off the means of keeping the shaft from turning while loosening the top nut (or not). The shock was not damaged, and I would not be able to get a pair of top plates from the dealer until Tuesday, so I put everything back together thinking my weekend project would have to be postponed yet another weekend. Steve, from Sonoran Steel returned my voicemail plea for advice right after I had spent 2 hours putting it all back in running order. Turns out, he just puts his foot on the assembly without compressing the coils first, tells everyone to stand back, and cuts loose on the top bolt with a reciprocating saw. I nailed two pieces of scrap 2x6 to the deck to act as a cradle to keep the spring from rolling, donned a pair of heavy hunting boots, and judicously deployed the power tool. Two loud pops later I had the top plates loose and then assembled the new shock/coil parts with little fanfare. When the blade cut through on the topbolt, the shock shot about 4 feet on one side and the topnut/bolt took off like a bullet in the opposite direction. Fortunately, as a precaution, I had positioned my Budbuilt skid plate as a backstop to keep it from going through the french door.
Compressing the coils was a little tedious but my practice session on Saturday made it go quicker. The trick is to get the spring hooks as close to the ends as possible while still being able to remove them when the spring is slightly compressed.
Rear coils were easier (not a coilover configuration). Again, the real problem was getting the old shocks off the truck.
The only other difficulty was the number of times I had to crawl out from under the truck to retrieve a tool...sure do miss my little tool fetchers, although they aren't so little anymore. Actually, Kristin (the oldest) helped me mangle one of the rear shocks just before I took after it with the grinder and a cut-off wheel
One other aspect of the job to consider...it takes a lot of pressure on wrenches and other tools to break things loose. Being a nervous Nellie about crawling under a vehicle sitting on jack stands, I was forced to keep double checking the stands. In fact, I'm such a chicken I doubled the 6 ton jack stands by putting two on each side and securely chocked the wheels front and back.
All in all, I'd say it was a
job that I managed to turn into a
job...which is par for the course for me.
