1993 Chevrolet K3500 Truck Front 6 Piece Suspension Kit TRQ PSA72517

One of the first things we need to do is safely raise and support the vehicle, so the wheel is off the ground. Let's remove our 22-millimeter lug nuts. Remove your wheel.

Now that the wheel's off of here, we have a clear view of the sway bar link. What you're going to notice is, up along the top, it has a strange-looking nut. It's very thin. It's going to be hard to grab onto. I'm going to use a pair of locking pliers to try to grab onto it. Using my 15-millimeter socket, I'm going to come down from the bottom here. Now I'm going to use my 14-millimeter socket down along the bottom here, see if we can get this to come apart. Looks like it's starting to turn.

Okay. So, for us, the outer sheath on this broke free from the bolt itself that's supposed to be running through the center, so I'm just going to go ahead and spray this down with some penetrant, let that soak down and through there. Sometimes, what happens is, is this outer portion will actually freeze or get stuck onto the bolt. If that's the case, what you would either want to do is grab onto the outer portion with some locking pliers, and then try to spin out that bolt. If that doesn't work, you might have to just cut the bolt itself. There's the bolt. Let's get all this out of here. Awesome.

So, now, assuming you're doing the sway bar links as a pair, now is the best time to go ahead and start doing the other side as well. Okay. Once you have both sides out, you should be able to move the bar around a little bit at this point. We're going to grab our new sway bar links. We take off the nut, take off the washer and the bushing, the washer and the bushing, and then, of course, the sheath, washer and bushing again, and we're going to leave it just like this.

Now, as we come up, okay, coming up from under the control arm, we still have the bolt with the washer and the bushing. Now we're going to take our bushing with our washer, put that facing down and towards the control arm. Grab your spacer, put that on there. We're going to push this up a little bit further. Now you're going to go washer, facing up, bushing. Get it underneath that sway bar. Bring it up. Bushing again.

If you were to look at these bushings, you can tell that they have like a rounded area, and then they have this area right here with a little like a piton. The piton is going to be going either towards the control arm or towards the sway bar. Set that on there, this one right here, and then, of course, our locking nut. I like to use a little thread locker on these.

I'm just going to use my 14-millimeter wrench, and of course, my ratchet underneath, and I'm going to start snugging it up. As I snug it, I want to be watching these bushings. What I want to see is the bushing touching up against the bar, on both sides of course. And, of course, down by the control arm there, we want those bushings to be touching up against it as well. We don't necessarily want to continue tightening, though, until the point where they seem like they're getting squished down and even pancaking out. So, let's just snug them up so they're all touching at least, and then we'll continue on.

Okay. So, this looks great. As you can tell, all of my bushings are touching exactly where they need to be touching. And you're also going to notice that I didn't continue tightening until they flattened out, like I had said before. This looks pretty great, so I'm just going to take a quick measurement of it. It looks like it's approximately the width of my thumb, personally, so I'm going to make sure that I go approximately the same on the other side of the vehicle.

Okay. Now it's going to be time to get the wheel up on here. Slide it on. Now we'll get the lug nuts on here, we'll bottom them out, and then we'll torque them to manufacturer specifications. Let's torque these lug nuts to 140 foot-pounds. Torqued.

Once you have your vehicle safely raised and supported, we're gonna remove this center cover right here. This will expose those lug nuts. You can see six lug nuts. We're gonna remove all six of them using a 22-millimeter socket. Just gonna take one lug nut, leave it on there, just so the wheel can't fall off on me. Remove the wheel. So, now that we can see everything, we're just gonna hit this with some penetrant right down along here. I like to get up along the top, and right along in here. Obviously, we're gonna be removing the outer tie rod end from the knuckle here, because we're gonna have to remove the knuckle. Anytime you're doing front-end work, you're gonna have to get an alignment. So this is gonna be where your adjustment is for your toe. We need to spray down this whole area. This is gonna help the alignment person down the line. Awesome.

Now I'm just gonna turn the wheel a little bit here, and that's so I can get to this slider pin and this one right here, because we're gonna remove the caliper and hang it safely. Use your 3/8 socket. It's an Allen head. Slide the caliper off of here. And now we're gonna hang it from something, using something as simple as a bungee cord, or a hanger, or whatever you have, just as long as you're not putting any pressure on this rubber flex hose. Just put some penetrant on this area. And then I'm gonna put that nut on there, just a couple threads. That's because next, I'm gonna take my little hammer here, I'm gonna give this a couple bonks. When it comes down, I wanna make sure that nut catches it, and keeps me from potentially getting hurt.

So now, right along here, you're gonna notice there should be some push clips. This one's actually missing, but theoretically, you would probably pull that out of the way. And then you can see right here where your ABS wire is gonna connect in. You need to disconnect that by pulling right here. Slide that up and away. Next, we're gonna get this out of its holding spot, take out this bolt right here, pull all these out, and remove that as well. So now, we're gonna use a little forky tool, or you can even try to stick a screwdriver or pry bar behind here, and we're just gonna try to pull this off of the frame. This is what's holding it in. Remove this mounting bolt. Now let's grab this cable. Carefully pull it off these clips. Now we're gonna remove this nut. The bolt comes through from the bottom, so you're gonna have to hold the bolt head, and then remove this nut. Let's get this rotor off of here.

Next thing we're gonna do is remove this 36-millimeter axle nut. Behind there, there's a little washer. Get that off of there as well. The next thing you wanna do is spray this area. Let that seep in there, and then you're gonna take a punch and your hammer, and go right in the center, and give this a couple bonks until it breaks free. I can see it moving. That means I'm good. You definitely don't wanna use the hammer right on the axle, just in case you damage the threads. Let's just wrap this up so it's not hanging and potentially getting damaged.

The next thing we wanna do is come down to the lower ball joint, and you're gonna see this little cotter pin right here. It's kind of just a locking mechanism. It keeps the nut from turning. Remove it. Now we're gonna remove that nut. Just put that back on there, a few threads. Now it's time to remove the upper ball joint nut. We're gonna do the same thing with that cotter pin, get it out of there, and then remove the nut. So, now we're just gonna turn the knuckle all the way to the right. I'm gonna come through here with my wrench, and see if I can get this nut to break free. Nice. We're gonna remove this one completely. The next thing I'm gonna do is take my hammer and I'm gonna carefully try to bonk right here on the knuckle. Okay, this whole area right here is the knuckle, but I wanna get as close to the ball joint stud as possible so hopefully, it will break free and drop down a little bit. There we are we are. I'm just gonna press through this axle a little bit. Awesome.

So now, for this next part, it's super important to make sure that your ball joint nut is on there a few good threads. You wanna make sure that there's no way that this can fall down or come off on its own, because the next step is actually gonna be one of two things. You can either bonk directly on the knuckle, like we did with the upper, and hope that it vibrates free from the stud right here, or, of course, you can go with a pickle fork. The reason why I didn't use this pickle fork up top was because obviously, I'm not replacing that ball joint. If I use this, it's gonna damage the ball joint, and you have to replace it at that point. Okay. So, that broke free. This is looking great. I'm gonna hold this up. Remove the nut. And now I'll just carefully slide this right off of here. The next thing we're gonna do is take our wrench and hold under here on the nut side, and then we're gonna use the 18-millimeter socket up on top, and we're gonna remove the bolt side. Now I'm just gonna use a piece of scrap that I happened to find laying around, just so I can hold this axle up and out of my way. Remove all these bolts. We'll recycle these. Remove the lower ball joint.

Now it's gonna be time to install our lower ball joint here. It's gonna slide right inside there. If you wanted to use some Never-Seez, you could, but it's not necessarily needed. When you slide it through, you're gonna line up all those holes, and then you can take your bolts and your locking nuts. These are locking nuts. You can tell because they're oblong. Slide it right up and through. We're gonna do the same to all. So now, we're gonna use our wrench. Hold the bolt on the bottom side and we'll snug up these nuts. Just gonna bottom it out. Now we're just gonna make sure these are tight. I like to tighten them to approximately 100 foot-pounds.

Now it's gonna be time to get the knuckle back up on here. Just gonna start it into the bearing. Slide it over the stud on the lower ball joint. I'm gonna lift it up, and then I'm gonna start on the nut for the lower ball joint. That should hold it so it can't fall down. Take a break. Now we're just gonna bottom out this lower ball joint nut. This should wanna slide up, and the axle should slide through the wheel bearing. Now we're gonna go ahead and put this down through, and we're gonna start the upper ball joint nut. Let's put a bar over the top of the control arm and under the frame, so that way there, we can press down on this control arm. Start it right in there. Now I'm gonna take that upper ball joint nut, gonna start it right on that stud. Now we'll use our wrench and we'll tighten it up. So now, we're gonna turn this till it bottoms out. Okay. That's pretty good right there. Let's move back down to the lower ball joint nut here. We're gonna torque that to 94 foot-pounds. Now that's torqued.

The next thing you wanna do is pay attention to the castle nut slots, and you also wanna look at the stud of the ball joint to find where that cotter pin hole is. You line up the slot with the hole, which if you were to come over here, you'd be able to see. If you look right here, you can tell that it's almost lined up. The problem is, is to torque it to where it was supposed to be, it went a little bit past. So, the next thing you have to remember is you definitely don't wanna loosen, because then it will be under torqued. What you actually wanna do is continue tightening until it lines up with the next slot. Little bit more. That looks great. Let's grab our cotter pin and put it through there. Now, these are locking pins. It's super important to make sure you have it bent over completely. That way there, you're 100% sure there's no way this nut can come free. So, the next thing we would do is torque this upper ball joint nut. The torque for it is 74 foot-pounds, but as you can tell, the axle's kind of in the way. I'm just gonna use my wrench. I'm gonna make it nice and tight, and make sure the slot lines up with the hole.

Yeah. That's nice and tight. I'm gonna look for the slot. Okay. Looks like it comes through for me, and it comes through in that direction. Make sure that there's no way that this locking clip cotter pin can come out. Next, we're gonna get this ABS wire off of here. This part's gonna go right under here. Runs up along these. And then, of course, you have the mounting area, and then where it clicks in. Let's make sure we get all that together. Your little push tab. You definitely wanna make sure your ABS wire is secured, because if it's moving around in any way, there's a potential for it to get damaged, and you definitely don't want that.

Now, be careful when you're tightening this, because it will wanna turn, and if it turns too far, you could potentially put a tug on your wires. The wire's not rubbing on anything. This looks good. There we go. Make sure all the push clips are in. This looks great. The next thing you wanna do is make sure that your mating surface between your hub and your rotor is clean. Once it is, go ahead and put that rotor on there. I like to start on one of the lug nuts so the rotor can't move around, potentially fall off. It also helps keep rust from getting in there. Let's get our caliper up on here. Push those sliders. You should feel them kind of wanna latch into where the hole is. We're gonna start them both in before we fully tighten either of them up. Okay. I bottomed out. Tighten a bit more. Let's get the tie rod end in here.

Now we're gonna bottom this out, but don't tighten it too much, because the torque is only 40 foot-pounds. Okay, so we torqued it to 40 foot-pounds. The next thing you wanna look at is the slotted area to the hole, and make sure you line those up in a tightening manner. You definitely don't wanna loosen, once again. Next, you're gonna put your washer on the axle and then, of course, the nut. Let's bottom this out. You don't wanna over-tighten this, because you'll mess up the bearing, so we're just gonna bottom it out, and then we'll torque it to manufacturer specifications.

Okay, so the next thing we need to do is torque this axle nut. But a great way to do that is to grab the wheel, put it back on here. We're gonna put on all the lug nuts, and then we'll get it down so it's touching up against the ground. We'll torque the lug nuts and the axle nut at the same time. Now we're gonna torque the axle nut to 165 foot-pounds. Torqued. Torque your lug nuts to 120 foot-pounds. Torqued. Let's grab that center cover. Make sure you line up the holes with the lug nuts, or else you're gonna know it when you go to bonk it on.

I'm going to use a 22-millimeter socket to take off the lug nuts so we can remove the wheel, then I remove the wheel. So I'm going to use some pliers at the top of the sway bar link right there, and then underneath, I'm gonna use a 14-millimeter socket and just take the link out. A long bolt goes straight through just like that. And take the top off just like that. Now just take a pry bar underneath here. Just raise up on the sway bar, take the link out, all right. So we'll just take the new link apart, and just leave the washer and the bushing on this long bolt. And take the other bushing and the washer, line that up first.

And then this tube goes next. Slide that bolt through, and then another washer and the bushing. Align this up and slide the bushing and the washer. Pry down on the bar. And then it would help if you had someone to help you out to pry this while you're holding this and getting the nuts started. All right, that's good. And then use a 14-millimeter wrench for the nut and a 14-millimeter socket and tighten this down. And then you want to torque this to 89 inch-pounds. Make sure you're on inch-pounds, not foot-pounds. Now, put the tire back and lug nuts. Now we're gonna torque the lug nuts to 140 foot-pounds in a star pattern or a cross pattern so that it tightens the wheel down evenly. And just go around again. Double Check.