so last night i just finished replacing my stock suspension with some tokicos/gcs...

just thought id share some lil mishaps that came up here n there while installing, so hopefully others will be a little bit more prepared then me and not have to waste time re-doing stuff like i did... after all was done, i had wished i coulda came accross a write up to warn of possible bumps that could come along the way while installing hehe

first off i used the write up: http://www.ntpog.org/mods/fift...shtml

everything on there is really straight forward and clear... but there are still some things that can pop up which the write up doesnt touch on... most of the problems i came accross i was able to find the answers to by searching around ht, but there wasnt really a post to just give a heads up to ppl before they start instead of running into the problems during the installation

first off, just take off one assembly first! make sure you have bumpstops... the jackass owner that owned my car previously musta done something so i wasted sooooooooo much time taking off all 4 assemblies to find there were no oem bumpstops... so had to put everything back in and order bumpstops >_<

youll need all the tools listed on that write up... in addition you should have a veis grip handy... (oh btw, that write up is just for changing out springs and not for changing out the entire assembly)... when my friend and i were attempting to take off the top mount from the rear assembly, the allen key stripped the bolt since it was so rusty... so when we came accross this, we just veis gripped the rod of the shock (only do this if youre planning on trashing the stock ones)... then we were able to get the bolt off the top mount...

hehe be careful with the bolts when taking it off or putting it back on (if youre hands are damn cold you tend to be a lil clumpsy with them )... lost a 14 mm in my engine bay somewhere ...

should have a hacksaw or something that can cut metal in case you are planning on saving your dustcovers... (which in that case you'd need to cut them to about 2 inches or so)

should have a screwdriver and hammer handy as well to knock out the fork bolts n such...

when taking out the caster pin from the castle nut on the rears, be aware that it sort of takes the form of a bobby pin... so it kind of looks like a pin you stick thru a grenade (im guessing so from some of the movies ive seen )... be careful not to mistaken it as just one straight piece of metal... the caster pin is stuck thru a hole on the bolt which contains the castle nut, and the ends of the caster pin are folded down onto the bolt to make for a snugger fit... it was already dark out so we didnt notice that the caster pin had 2 ends at the end; so when we straightened out one end, we thought that was it and continued trying to yank it out... almost broke the caster pin ... luckily we caught it tho, but just make sure you dont mistaken it to the point where the pin snaps..

the write up in the link above has torque specs for the 3 top mounting bolts, pinch fork, and lower fork... before starting, make sure you get torque specs for the bolts that hold in the brake lines and the torque specs for the control arm where you used the pitman arm puller (if you used it)... but if youre not really technical, then yah dont worry about the torque specs hehe =D

these few mishaps arent really major, but they can waste you a lot of time, so hopefully in the future people dont have to run into these little problems as i did... took about 7-8 hours to finish... most of the time was eatin up by finding a solution to the stripped allen insert since it was late at night and nothing was open/hard to find someone with a veis grip

hehe as for me, if there were a few little posts like this (maybe there are but i didnt take recogning to think these problems would arise), things woulda been much easier... so hopefully this heads up for future first time suspension installers really helps out hehe


Modified by SNsLude at 2:20 PM 1/4/2005


Modified by SNsLude at 6:56 PM 1/4/2005