i have a 96 sr5 4runner with daystar spacer and was wanting to change them out myself to ome springs, today when i was working on the front the lower shock bolt was giving me some trouble. it would only come out about half and then hit the axle almost the cv boot, not alowing it to come out any further. what should i do??

 

You need to move the angle around of the CV by either jacking up that side and taking the tire off and supporting the vehicle on a jack stand and letting that side droop. It is always a tight fit getting it out, but you should be able to eyeball the angle that you need to get it past the boot. A little touching won't hurt the boot.

Good luck.

 

should the springs be compressed while doing this with spring compressors or is it not needed?

 

No, you don't mess w/ the spring compressor until you get things off.

Check this out for some pics and help.

http://www.sonoransteel.com/Tundra_Coils.html

Down at the bottom of the page it shows you what you need to do.

 

so if i were to take off the lower ball joint assembly it will be alot more easy and the cv angle should allow the shock bolt to come out?

 

Just do the bottle jack trick. That should work, just make sure you have it on there good...I didn't and it about knocked my head off!

 

ok i finally got everything off today and it was the biggest pain in the butt ever. the top strut bolts all got stripped on there from road salt and rust, so i had to end up grinding those off. then when i got to the rear one side came off like a peice of cake then the other (side of gas tank) the spring was getting hung up on the upper conrol arm while trying to take it out. but all in all it was a fun day.