First a disclaimer. I'm not a mechanic, and I'm not a good amateur wrencher. I'm learning, and that's why I'm posting this... so others can learn from my mistakes, and you pros and semi pros can tell me where I messed up. I'll be doing the rear today, and posting in a separate thread.

Mistakes:
1. Didn't release the sway bar and drop the axle. We got a tip not to if using spring compressors, but it's time consuming and made refit not so precise.

2. I THINK I let the driveshaft rest on a crossmember, when lowering the axle, even without removing the sway bar. This wasn't mentioned in the RAVE, but there is now more fluid coming out of the bearing/seal around the flange coming of my front diff. I'm not sure, if I did this, I'm just trying to explain the leak. The pinion bearings were already going bad like in my rear diff and it was already leaking. But I'm not sure yet how much damage I've done to either the driveshaft or the diff. Any ideas here from those that know what they are doing?

Tools needed:
high quality, smooth release floor jack
Jack stands
3/4 inch socket
3/4 & 1/2 inch open ended wrench
deep 1/2 socket
2 feet of extensions
u-joint for sockets
breaker bar for your ratchet.
a buddy to help.

Floor jacks. My buddy had me using short 10 inch ones even though we had the 6 ton 16" (at the lowest) cause he felt they were too high. I'd rather have the truck higher on better floor jacks, but raising and lowering the axle might have been a problem for us with the front that high.


Support axle with high quality floor jack. In the middle and on the sides with other jacks.

Remove coolant reservoir. It unsnaps easily.


Remove top shock thru-bolt. It'll hit the plate that holds the reservoir if you don't have the axel raised enough. Use your bottle jack to raise that side of the axle, the nut will come up some. I had to push down on the plate a little aggressively too.


The other side is much easier...


One of the must have tools for the job is a deep 1/2 inch socket and lots of extension for the shock tower nuts.


Going to use a cheap floor jack for anything other than adjustments? Think again. The floor jack must lower in a controlled fashion, and the cheap one's don't.


Remove the lower shock retaining nuts, finish removing the shock towers, pull it and the shock out.


Spring compressors. This was the bear of the project.


We got a tip not to take the sway bar off, use the compressors. The RAVE says otherwise. Listen to the rave. With just the compressors, you have to compress the hell out of the springs and getting taller, stiffer ones in is a bear. You also can't get them on even halves of the spring so it's a little funky. Mark where you do position them so you can position them correctly on the new springs.

You can use the jack to jack the axle up, compressing the spring, then place the compressors on the spring and you won't have to ratchet them down as much.

Camera battery died after this.

When putting the compressors on the new springs, don't place the compressors on the bottom turn of the spring, or the bottom compressor clamp will get trapped in between spring rungs when you put the springs back on the truck. Ask me how I know. This cost a lot of time and was stressful.

The other big thing with the compressors is the position. Too close together, the spring won't compress enough. Too far apart and you won't be able to unscrew them due to all the parts of the truck that are in the way.

Also MAKE EVEN TURNs on the compressors. You don't want the side you aren't working on to get loose and slide closer to the one you are compressing. If that happens, you'll have to uncompress and recompress. Ask me how I know.

So again, undo the sway bar and drop the axle like the rave says. You can also use the spring compressors that way, but I'd say don't rely on them solo.

Part of not dropping the axle is when you put the springs back in, they are tight. You may be able to compress them more than we did. I had problems on the spring seats getting the shock and spring seat nuts back into alignment on the passenger side. I had to compress the spring again and shift the seat around to get the shock, seat and nuts attached to the axle to line up. Another pain in the rear, caused by not lowering the axle.

Anyways, that's the story. If anyone can help with that diff, post here or anything I screwed up that would make this job easier for anyone else, please, post it.

 

Thanks for the write-up! I will be doing this myself at some point too and, like you, I am not a pro. Other peoples' experiences help tackle the job when it needs to get done!

Cheers!

 

No problem DF. I got the rear on yesterday and took some photos. It's increadibly easy after the front. I'll make a separate post on that later.

 

can't wait to see it. Thanks for the write up

 

There is a little verification on the driveshaft binding issue in this thread at dweb. You have to read between the obnoxious comments and such. I'm puzzled as to why rave doesn't mention the issue at all.


http://discoweb.org/forums/showthread.php?t=57026

 

How many of you all believe replacing trailing/radius arms are necessary with the lift? Because I'm figuring since I'll be under there anyways I might as well replace them.

 

Digging up old threads now eh?

I don't as long as it's a 2"-3" lift and nothing is broken, bent, worn out, etc. If you go higher than that you'll probably need to, to correct angles and such. You have a DI, so things might be different, but I don't think different enough for there to be an issue.

The only thing I touched when I did my lift was the shock and spring perch bolts, I even left the sway bars attached.

 

Lol heck yeah dude. But thanks brocomotive

 

You betcha.

Lift install is easy, it's BUYING a lift and tires that's the hard part $$$$$$