YotaPower

So my dad and I were trying to install some 1" Daystar coil spacers on his 97 tacoma (4x4, 2.7L). We got the spring/strut assembly out, compressed the spring safely and successfully, put the longer bolt/studs in, went to put the assembly back into the truck with the spacer on top, and we could not get the thing to fit back in! the lower a-arm won't go down far enough. We had a long metal bar for leverage, and still couldn't move it enough. We got it to within a 1/4", but not ANY further. my dad was sitting completely on the bar, still no more movement. I'm still confused on what could be limiting the travel because I couldn't see anything in the way; CVs were fine, balljoint was close but not touching the spring, idk.

I've searcehd/looked around online, and no one else seems to have a problem or mention much about putting the assembly back in with even 2" spacers. The official instructions actually say to disconnect the balljoint, however we don't have a ball joint seperator and all other installs/writeups online don't mention touching the ball joint at all.

Any one got any ideas/thoughts/criticisms of my setup? Would new (longer, shorter) struts help? Anyone know what's limiting the downtravel of the a-arm?

Here are some pics:
Note how far off the bottom shock hole is (this is without anyone pushing down on the a-arm of course):

Note our leverage bar behind the strut assembly in both of these pics:

waskillywabbit

iTrader: (-1)

Remove the two lower spindle bolts so the lower A-arm will go down further but make sure not to pull the CV apart.
If you don't know where these are...the 17mm (I think) bolt heads face the ground and they are about 3-4" apart. I'm sure you can find some pictures.

Here is one to give you an idea.
See the bolt holes aligned with the center of the non splined part of the axle shaft? Those are the ones.

DSN46

Have you put the stock jack that came with the truck on top of the upper control arm to "jack it downward" yet? I had same situation and this was what it took to get it low enough.

Also, I can't tell from the pics, but did you unhook the sway-bar end links? This will give you a little more droop and every centimeter seems to count!

Good luck!

James

YotaPower

okay, wow, thanks guys; sounds like two good pieces of advice that might work. Maybe if i had just spent some more time under there I could have figured that out. Unfortunately, we are leaving for the week and probably won't get back to this project until after we get back. I'll let you know how it goes though, Happy Thanksgiving!