Installing Bilstein 5100s - does the floor jack method work on a Tundra?

I've swapped shocks on a Tacoma and a 4Runner. With those it was as easy as putting a floor jack under the LCA, disconnecting the lower ball joint (going by memory here), loosening the LCA tabs, removing the top nut and bottom nut on the shock, and lowering the LCA with the floor jack. Pop the shock and coil out, swap the shock in, and install using the floor jack to raise the LCA back up compressing the spring.

Is this method viable on a Tundra? Springs look a lot more substantial.

 

Yes, I think you are saying the same as whats in this video. I followed the video and it went well.

https://youtu.be/Od02vc2LWrA

 

It should work just fine. It's when people are adding lift with a raised up coil seat that it can be a little tricky, but even still, with stock coils it should be fine. Worst case scenario, you can pull the whole setup if you can't get it back together and take it to a shop to have them put it together real fast.

 

Thanks guys. Fortunately my Tundra is not my daily so worst case I'll take a trip to town to get the springs installed. Planning on middle setting later this spring.

 

If you are needing to set the springs on the shock body, I'd take those to a shop. But installing on the truck isn't bad.

You will get mixed reviews about using a spring compressor yourself but the risk is high and unless you have good equipment it can go south fast. Just my 2 cents. Good luck

 

You can omit the step where you have to loosen the LCA cam tabs. Don't even bother - get a 2x4, stick it under the bump stop and get another pair of hands to hold the 2x4 while you squeeze the shocks into the shock tower.

 

Shop charged me $50 to put spring on the two front shocks. Well worth the money. Almost took my hand off one time using a spring compressor. Never again.

 

Worked for me easy

 

I won't use a janky spring compressor on the struts for Subaru, let alone the coilover shocks on a truck. Those things are a death trap.

 

I posted this thread a year ago and finally got around to swapping out my shocks. I ended up going with Eibach Pro Truck Sport shocks set at 1.9" (which is not an option for the Bilsteins, you either get 1.57" or 2.28"). For anyone who may search for this in the future the exact same jack method works fine on the Tundra and is honestly maybe a bit easier given there's more room. I did attempt the suggestion of using a piece of wood (and a giant pry bar) to pry the LCA down without loosening the alignment cams, no dice on this truck it was still too tight. Prying would probably work for swapping complete coilover assemblies, but not for assembling shocks and coils.

My process started out with only doing one side at a time. Leaving the opposite side wheel on the ground made it a lot easier when compressing the spring. There's not a lot of places on the very rear end of a Crewmax to throw a big jack stand as a counter so leaving the opposite side on the ground really helped. On my Tacoma and 4Runner I was able to secure the opposite rear corner of the frame with a jack stand and that made compressing the spring easy.

1) Raise the side you're going to do first. Get it tall enough to put a big jack stand under the frame as you'll need the space to work. Once it's secured keep the floor jack under the LCA and keep the LCA compressed.
2) Remove the wheel
3) Disconnect the sway bar from both sides (you don't need to have the opposite side jacked up to do this). Drop the sway bar and leave it resting on the skid plate. You can probably do it with the sway bar still on the brackets, but it was much easier to wrangle the shock in with it moved out of the way. Takes maybe 5 minutes to reinstall it so just remove it.
4) Remove the two 22mm lower ball joint bolts. These suckers are tight, but my Makita mid-torque impact zipped them off without issue
5) Remove the 22mm lower shock nut, leave the bolt in place in for now
6) Crack the alignment cams loose. I didn't have a big enough metric sock, but a 15/16" deep impact socket fit perfectly. Couldn't get my impact in there since I don't have a 1/2 u-joint, 12 flex handle and some muscle worked for me (no rust here in Oregon). You loosen them using the bolt on the front cam (front of the vehicle) and nut on the rear cam (also towards the front of the vehicle)
7) Remove the nut from the stock shock. 8mm box end and 19mm box end and get to cranking. Once it's removed set it aside.
8) Use the floor jack to slowly lower the LCA until tension is off the spring.
9) Use a punch to gently tap the shock bolt free.
10) Pull the shock out.
11) Slide new shock in. Just let the lower eye rest in the LCA, don't bother with the bolt just yet as it gets in the way of trying to get the coil and shock aligned with the top hat.
12) Jack the LCA up while guiding the shock and coil into the top hat. Pay close attention to ensure your coil isolator at the top hat and your coil seat on the shock stay aligned. The Eibach shocks were long enough that getting them lined up with the top hat was pretty easy, it was more work getting the coil lined up properly.
13) Once the shock and coil assembly have been compressed into the coil bucket on the frame and you've verified your coil isolator and coil seat are lined up with the coil install the top nut. Again 8mm and 19mm box ends.
14) Lower floor jack until the lower shock bolt can be installed.
15) Raise floor jack up to install lower ball joint bolts.
16) Torque lower ball joint bolts to 220 foot pounds. Torque lower shock bolt to 144 foot pounds. Torque LCA cams to 207 foot pounds. If you didn't use a BIG jack stand (I have 12 ton stands) you won't have the truck high enough to get 207 foot pounds on the LCA cams.
17) Reinstall wheel, repeat steps for the opposite side.
18) Once opposite side is done, reinstall the sway bar. 51 foot pounds on the frame brackets, 89 foot pounds on the links bolted to the LCA.
19) Get it aligned.

Overall with a cordless mid torque (Makita DWT18Z) this was about a 2 hour job for both sides. This is the third Toyota I've done this work on, the others being a 2nd Gen Tacoma and a 5th Gen 4Runner. The Tundra is extremely similar, just everything is much bigger underneath. There is a lot of room to work, which makes it nice.