ssbogger

While putting on my AAL's on my tacoma I was going to put on longer shocks as required. I decided to go with Bilstein 5100's as I have heard good things about them. I guess the people i ordered from didnt think it would be important to tell me that the bushings in the shocks are smaller than the stock ones making it impossible to fit on the shock mounting post.

You can order aftermarket ones from various places online but this wasnt an option for mme as i had already installed my AAL's and needed the truck to be drivable that day. The shock mounting post measures 3/4" in diameter so i decided to make the bushing 5/8" so it would fit tight. All you have to do is drill out the bushing, while still in the shock, with a sharp bit. It was really easy and worked great. The only problem was squeezing the shock on the post. In hindsight, I would probably have drilled the bbushings out to 3/4" since the rubber expands when the bit goes in making the hole slightly smaller than the size of the drill bit when it comes out.

I hope this is helpful to anyone that comes across this topic in the future.

BTW, the bit tends to try and grab the bushing so it helps to have two people and a drill press. Maybe one person and a standard drill would work fine too.

--Sam

Flamedx4

You definitely didn't want to drill the holes oversized. You want them TIGHT or they clunk! I recently put new shocks on and it was a beeyotch to press them on. I wrapped a ratchet strap around them and the frame or bracket or whatever is there and used that to squeeze em on. A bit of grease helped too. I also used the strap to compress them, I could not do it by hand.

ssbogger

yeh thats true. they were just ALOT harder to pt on than the stock ones were to take off. I guess that's probably because the old ones were on there for a few years and got loose. I beat these on with a hammer (rubber) and used oil.