It's been a year since I lifted my Tacoma and I don't remember having this problem. We're lifting my friends 99 4Runner with the Revtek kit. We took the strut/spring out and he took it to a local shop and had the spacer put in on their compressor. But now when we put the top end in place, the bottom end of the strut won't line up in the "ears" on the lower A arm. It's twisted slightly and we can't get the bolt through. When I did mine on the Taco I compressed everything and put the spacer in myself, but I don't remember this being an issue. In fact I thought the bottom of the strut would still turn slightly by hand if you had to line it up. Are we going to have to compress everything again to shift the top plate slightly so that the top and the bottom will line up?

 

Yep, unfortunately you'll have to compress it enough until you're able to move the top plate around a bit. I know how frustrating it is ... I've had to do it four times ... with a manual coil compressor and hand tools!

Hang in there ...

 

Thanks!

 

the best thing I learned to do was to mark everything before taking it apart ... I just used a white-out pen and made marks on the coil, and the top plate so that then I could line those two parts up before decompressing the coil and reinstalling it. Sometimes it's a bit off, but usually it works well enough to get everything back in and working.

 

Loosely thread the top plate into place on the upper control arm. Then use a long, heavy-duty screw driver placed through the lower strut eyelet and twist it just enough to get it lined up.