Hey everyone, my name is Tim, long time reader first time poster. This is my 1983 pickup that I've been driving and wrenching on for about a year and a half. It's covered in bed liner, on its' return trip from the moon, has some rust holes in the bed but it starts every day and has been great for my commute and light duty hauling. My plans are to lower it and give it a little more power.
That's the plan. I'm waiting on Brian of Street Tacos to send out blocks and bump stops and I have some Belltech street performance front shocks on the way. I've already got air Monroe air shocks installed in the rear.
I finally got my blocks from Street Tacos and got them installed, but I hit a snag when installing the Belltech shocks up front. As the attached picture shows, even with the dust cover removed there is no way it's fitting through the LCA as they measure about 1/2" wider than the stock struts. I wrote Belltech to confirm the part numbers and everything checks out, but once I sent them this photo they stopped responding. Has anyone else had this problem or have any suggestions?
You're going to have to drop the arm. Release either the top or bottom ball joint, whichever is easier for you, and come in from the top. Angle one side of the T-pokey bit in, jam it over and in until you can drop the other half down in, then center it up and bolt it in. When I took my last set of shocks out, they had used fatties in there like that, and I damn near broke out the torch to remove them.
Hmm, I tried going in through the top but I didn't try all of that. As soon as I went from the top I just thought, "Nope, that's not going to work without cutting the LCA."