Installing Coil overs and A-Arms on a 1998 Tacoma

[crawler#976]

Tools: Air compressor, air ratchet, impact wrench, Proto torque wrench, 10MM thru 24MM sockets (two sets), 1/2" and 3/8" ratchets, 10MM thru 24MM box end ratchet wrenches, three plastic containers for bolts, 4x4 ball joint press, 6 pair latex gloves, blue locktite, 3/4" dia x 8" brass bar (used as a drift), Mechanix gloves, and a bunch of misc stuff...

Support the vehicle on jack stands.

Remove the tires, place them under the frame as a safety precaution.

This shows the setup I was replacing - 2.0" SAW's and stock a-arms. The frame and surrounding area is dark with PB Blaster. I applied it on three consecutive days prior to disassembling the front suspension. It really works well!

 

[crawler#976]

There are four bolts on the top of the coil bucket.

DO NOT REMOVE THE CENTER NUT!!

It is the retaining nut for the coil assembly.

2.After removing the three outside bolts on the top of the coil over, position your stock jack and crank it down until the coil over is loose.

 

[crawler#976]

Remove the lower bolt on the coil over.

 

[crawler#976]

Remove the stock coil over or old coil over. In some cases you might need a long pry bar to force the A-Arms down far enough to remove the unit. The bushings can act like a spring and keep tension on the components.

 

[crawler#976]

Using a large hammer, a pickle fork and a piece of 1/2" steel as a spacer, remove the ball joint from the stock A-Arm. The gap between the A-Arm and spindle is quite large, and without the piece of steel, the pickle fork did absolutely nothing...

Once the ball joint is free, I supported the spindle with a flor jack to keep the halfshaft from pulling out too far.

 

[Mumbaki1037]

Thanks for posting this. I am planning to change my UCA's too and I was looking for writeups about it.:wings:

 

[crawler#976]

I decided to buy a complete ball joint/u-joint press. This one cost about $80.00 - money well spent IMO. Everything I read about doing this install suggested it was a real PITA without one, and while I could have rented one, I prefer to use my own tools.

 

[crawler#976]

After removing the tie wire and boot, REMOVE THE C-CLIP! This is reused on assembly. The C-Clip is fairly heavy duty, so a quality tool is needed. The cheapies just won't do it - I learned that on the front solid axle maintenance I used to do so frequently.

 

[crawler#976]

After getting everything in place, 20 seconds later the ball joint was free.

 

[crawler#976]

After using liberal amounts of anti-sieze, replacing the old ball joint with the new uniball adapter took another 20 seconds. REMEMBER TO REPLACE THE C-CLIP!!!

 

[crawler#976]

For the driver side I removed the winch control bracket and radiator overflow tank to gain access to the mondo long A-Arm bolt. Once it was removed, the A-Arm quite literally fell off. On the Passenger side I had to remove the air box and relocated cruise control bracket. Newer Tacomas will need to have an air bag sensor removed on each side.

 

[crawler#976]

I then assembled the Camburg A-Arms. The bushings go in dry per the instructions. Only the inner surface and ends get lubed. After lubing the poly bushings, the steel bushings were then pressed in with a 6" C-Clamp. The self tapping zerk fttings are a nice touch!

Oh yeah...

Remember the latex gloves??? You'll need'm to apply what is possibly the stickiest lube I have EVER encountered.

 

[crawler#976]

Remember all that sticky lube???

It's now pretty much all over everything...even after using gloves. I can't imagine the mess without them. Even the GoJO hand cleaner had a tough time getting it off my hands after handling the washers.

Doing the A-Arms solo is a bit of a stretch. One thing the lube does well is act as an assembly glue for the washers. Once the front side was in place I found the space between the mounting surface and the new bushings was very tight. I ground off an edge of the washer to aid in inserting it, and tapped it into place with the brass bar. Once everything was installed and the Locktite was on I torqued the supplied nut to 85 Ft/Lbs.

 

[crawler#976]

Assemble the Uniball, and after adding blue locktite, I torqued the supplied nut to 90 Ft/Lbs. The A-Arm install took the most amount of time by a fair margin. Having a second set of hands would have probably prevented me from removing the guards from the fenderwells, but I couldn't see with them in place, so...

 

[crawler#976]

With the new Camburg A-Arms in place, installing the new 2.5" Donahoe Extended Travel Zoo Road coil overs was a snap. Even the lower bolt went in without any hassle!

The entire job took me roughly 5 hours to complete - I believe with a second set of hands it could have been done in 4 or slightly less.

Hope this helps! If there are any questions, please ask away!

Mark