So I’ve got a new project here
I’m going to be showing you how to replace
The strut assembly on this 2005 Toyota Tacoma
Without using a spring compressor
And this is my brother’s truck
I’ve got another video posted up
And I’ll throw up a…
I’ll annotate a link to that
Here’s the new struts
And he also got some heavier coil springs
Because he does have the ARB bumper
And there is a winch in there as well
So he needs the heavier coil springs to support
The weight of that front bumper and winch assembly
So, we’ll get to it
This is actually really, really easy
We just finished up doing the driver’s side
This here is the passenger side
So, we’ll get started on this
And we’ll show you how to get this done
Well the first part of this project is you need to get
The vehicle safely supported on a good set of jack stands
And get your tires and wheels off
Now, we are going to need to loosen
The lower control arms and drop them out of the way
So what we’re doing here
We’re putting a couple of little marks on the alignment cams
So that when we retighten the lower control arm
We can get it roughly in the ballpark of where it was
So that we can safely drive the vehicle to the alignment shop
And after any suspension modification
You do need to take your truck in to have it realigned
After we’ve made the marks on the lower control arm alignment cams
We need to support the lower control arm
With this floor jack here
There are 2 bolts that need to be removed
They connect the lower ball joint assembly
To the actual steering knuckle
So we’ve got to pull these out
So that we can drop the control arm down further
You do not need to remove the actual ball joint
So here’s the 2 bolts that you need to remove
You can see us putting the socket on these 2 bolts
They take a 19mm socket
There you can also see the castle nut and the cotter pin
For the ball joint
You do not need to take that assembly apart
You just need to remove these 2 bolts
Well here we are
We’re loosening the lower control arm mounting bolts
You do not need to take the lower control arm off
You just need to loosen the bolts
So that the lower control arm
Will swing down far enough
The you can remove the strut assembly
The next step of this process
Is to remove the nut on the top of the shock
With a 17mm wrench
At this point we are not going to be removing
The 3 bolts that hold the tophat bushing
To the shock tower assembly
We’re only going to remove this one nut on top of the shock
So now that we have that top nut removed
Holding the shock in place
We’re going to use the floor jack
To slowly lower the suspension
And effectively what we’re doing
Is we’re using the weight of the truck as a spring compressor
And as we lower the floor jack
And drop the suspension down
That spring will decompress slowly and safely
So that it doesn’t fly out and injure you
When you’re trying to pull it out
Here you can see we’ve got all the spring tension
Released and now we can unbolt the strut
From the lower control arm
And safely pull the assembly out of the truck
So not only are we replacing the spring and the strut assembly
The shock absorber
We’re also going to replace the tophat
This here, this is the new one
And you can see some damage here
See how that hole is wallowed out
And I’ll come over here and I’ll show you on the shaft
Can you see how it looks like someone has been trying to chop down a tree
So this shaft was walking around in there
So we needed to replace this tophat as well
And one thing I want to mention
You can see the different lengths of the shock
There is supposed to be positive pressure
Pushing up on the shaft
This one’s fully collapsed
And it’s been collapsed for more than an hour
And it has not reset
So this shock absorber is junk
It definitely needed to be replaced