Chevrolet GMC Front 4 Piece Suspension Kit TRQ PSA56426

Hi, I'm Mike from 1A Auto. We've been selling auto parts for over 30 years.

Remove the center cap with a large flat-bladed screwdriver or a plastic prying tool you can get from 1AAuto.com. Push in here and pop it off. Use a 22 millimeter socket and breaker bar to loosen the lug nuts while the vehicle is still on the ground. Raise and support the vehicle and finish removing the wheel.

Support the suspension arm assembly with a jack or a jack stand. We're using this because we're working on a two post lift. The suspension is going to want to drop when we remove the strut and spring assembly, so that's why we need to have it supported. At the top here, there are three studs with nuts. We will start by removing those. And then, loosen the two stud and nuts on the bottom and pull the strut assembly out.

I will spray some rust penetrant on the nuts and bolts here. Use a 15 millimeter wrench on the top ones. If they are stuck, use a dead blow, break them free. With those broken free, I'm going to switch to a ratcheting wrench, make things go a little quicker. These two lower mounting bolts go through the control arm. There is a 15 millimeter head on this side, and an 18 millimeter nut on this side. I'm going to try to break this nut free first. Take my wrench and then hit it with my mallet.

So it looks like it's actually turning the nut, and not the bolt, which is good. Free it up. I'm going to try to do the same for the other side. With the nut loose, I'm going to kind of hold it with my 18 millimeter, and take a 15 millimeter socket and ratchet. Now I've got it loose, I can undo it with my fingers. Slide the long bolt out. I'll put these together and put them aside. So repeat the removal for the other bolt. I'm going to hold the shock and I'll lower the suspension down. I'm going to capture one of the top nuts just so if the strut and shock combination comes loose, it doesn't fall completely out. I'm going to take a pry bar and sort of push against the bottom. Reach up, hold the strut up, and undo that top nut. Pull it out of the mount. It's not going to come down this way, so it's going have to come out through the top. We have our strut and spring assembly.


Here's our old strut and spring assembly from our vehicle, and our brand new assembled strut and spring from 1AAuto.com. So the nice things is you don't have to worry about swapping these springs, which can be very difficult. It comes fully loaded, ready to go. As you can see, it's got the same mounting bolt holes in the bottom. It has the same three studs on the top to mount. It has the same three mounting studs on the top as the original that came out. And this should go in your vehicle great and give you a good ride. This is just a warning sticker. You can remove this before you install it. You don't need to mess with this center nut. It's all set.

The spring is assembled. The warning's telling you not to undo it. Just leave it alone. You can take the sticker off. So we're going to go ahead and install this in the vehicle now. Before we install it, just remove these nuts that it comes with. Place them aside. I'm going to loosen this one and hold onto it, because when I install it, I'm going to use it to just hang the strut in place so it doesn't fall. So just keep that in a handy spot. When you install this, there are two mounting holes in the back. They are slotted, so they give you a little bit of room to work with.

I'm going to line the strut up with the two studs in the back and the one in the front, faced the way that it's already set up. And these are lined up to match up with the control arm. We're going to go in the reverse the way we took the old one out. Slide it up into place. That's why I kept the nut handy. I can reach up and capture one so it doesn't fall on me. I'm going to use that one nut I installed and a ratcheting wrench to just draw the strut up into place. I'm going to pry up on the suspension a bit, on the strut, do this. I have a large pry bar on one side of the suspension arm, so I basically just pried the control arm down, and then pried the shock into place. Take a punch and align the bolt holes.

You're going to have to spend some time moving the shock around to get these bolts to line up, either using an awl or a punch or a little pry bar to try and pry it around. This one doesn't quite line up. I've got the other one captured, so we'll take a pry bar and sort of pry the strut around. Try to wiggle it in. There it is. I captured the other two nuts on the top studs. These are locking nuts. And if they're torqued, they'll be locked in place. The bolts that we're replacing these with, the head is a 13 millimeter, the nut is still a 15. I'm just going to snug these up. And we'll use a 15 millimeter ratcheting wrench. Tighten up the top nuts. I torqued these lower bolts to 37 foot-pounds. Caught a hold of the top of the bolt and nut. Repeat the other one. Torque the top nuts to 37 foot-pounds using the deep socket and torque wrench.

Place the wheel back on the car. Thread the lug nuts on by hand. With the vehicle on the ground, I'm going to torque the lug nuts. Torquing these 140 foot-pounds. Going in a cross pattern. Reinstall the center cap. Line up this valve stem picture with the valve stem on the wheel. Just pushing it into place.

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Hi, I'm Mike from 1A Auto. I hope this how-to video helps you out, and next time you need parts for your vehicle, think of 1AAuto.com. Thanks.

In this video, I'm going to show you how to replace the front shocks and spring assemblies on this 2011 Chevy Silverado. This is a 1500 with full-wheel drive. It's the same as any Chevy Silverado 1500 as well as the GMC Sierra 1500. We'll show you the passenger's side, but the driver's side is the same procedure. We do always recommend you replace these in pairs. You'll need new struts from 1AAuto.com, you'll need 15mm to 22mm sockets with a ratchet, a long extension, breaker bar or pipe for some extra leverage, penetrating oil, torque wrench, and jack and jack stands.

From the top there are three 18mm nuts that hold the top of the strut in place. You can see one there, one has a wire loom on it there that I'm going to reach down, grab, and just pull off. I apologize for the camera shot. You just grab the wire clip and pull it up off the stud. You have the other one there and your third one there.

Now use an 18mm socket with a long extension and remove those three nuts. Remove the center cab just by prying with a screwdriver, and if you don't have the benefit of air tools, loosen the lug nuts with the vehicle on the ground, then raise and secure the vehicle. Then remove the lug nuts the rest of the way. Remove the wheel and tire, and they are 22mm lug nuts.

Turn the wheel using hands or using the steering wheel, and then you need to remove the stabilizer link. Make sure you put some penetrating oil on the top end of it there, then use a wrench on the top side and a socket and ratchet on the bottom side to remove it all the way. Going to speed it up a little bit using an impact wrench to take that off. It just speeds things up for us.

Now with the shock or strut in place, we're just using a 15mm socket and ratchet. You might want to use a breaker bar to break them loose, but they come apart pretty easy on this truck. We'll fast-forward as we just take those out. With those bolts out, press down on the suspension some and bring the strut down and then up and out.

You can see the new struts from 1A Auto are exactly the same. There are two clips on the old strut that you want to pry off with a screwdriver, and then it's easiest to reinstall those just when you put the strut back into the vehicle. Put them on there, put the bolt up through, and you'll see us to do that. Putting the strut back in, if you look on the top of the strut where the coil spring ends that goes to the outside, and you put the strut back in and then lift it up into place.

Then you can just start the nuts onto the top. Put the bottom down in place, take your bolt, run it up through, and then those clips that you took off of the original strut, put them into place, and we just kind of hold them with our fingers, get the bolt started, and then you can press them down into place and tighten up the bolts the rest of the way.

You can see here we use a screwdriver to put through the clip to hold it in place until it gets down far enough that it holds itself in place. Repeat it for the other side as well. You can tighten these up between 70 and 75 foot-pounds. Speed up as we put the stabilizer link back in place. Use a pry bar to lift up on the swag bar a little bit, put the link back in place, put the bolt up through, and then tighten the nut down on top.

Then put our wheel back on, put the lug nuts back on by hand first, then tighten them up preliminarily. With the vehicle back down on the ground and secure, torque the lug nuts to 110 foot-pounds using a crossing pattern. Tighten up and torque the top three nuts to *38* foot-pounds, and put that wire clip back in place. You should be all set.

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One of the first things you want to do is safely raise and support your vehicle by the frame, so your suspension can hang. Once you've done that, take a small pry bar, and we're going to take off this center cap. If you were to spin it, you're going to see a little notch in the cap. Just carefully slide this off of here. That exposes our 22-millimeter lug nuts. Remove all six. Remove your wheel.

All right. So, before we get too much further, I just want to make sure that you understand that it's always a great idea to do your sway bar links as a pair. We're going to use a 15-millimeter wrench up on top on this nut right here, and another 15-millimeter down here. We'll remove the whole shaft, and pull this right out. You can see it's starting to come unthreaded. Little rubber bushing, you want to pop that off of there.

Now, this shaft right here is going to be stuck inside the plastic unit there. I'm going to spray a little bit of penetrant, and then I'm going to see if I can drive this down. All right. As you can see, it was very rusted. I'll grab that with some pliers and continue. So, now I'm just going to take my pry bar. I want to come right in between here, and I can lift up and remove this centerpiece.

The next thing we want to do is unscrew our sway bar link, so it all comes apart like this. We're going to make sure we have our bolt. We have one of our washers and one of our bushings with a little piton facing up. Now, I'm going to come down through this lower control arm. Start it in like this. I'm going to take another one of these rubber bushings, and now I'm going to put that little piton area facing down towards the control arm. That's going to make it so it fits right in. That's great. Now, you need another one of those washers. Put that facing down. Put in your spacer. Another metal washer facing up. We're going to take our rubber bushing with the piton facing up, and that's going to face right up against towards this sway bar right here. Now, just bring this down just a teeny bit. I'm going to grab that pry bar, lift this up, and I'm going to slide this into where our sway bar hole is. Line that up. Set it down. Drive my bolt up through. We've got our rubber bushing with the piton facing down towards the sway bar metal. And then, of course, our nut. There we are.

Now, it's going to be time to tighten this up. It's important to remember, as you're tightening up the nut with the bolt, that as these come squishing down, you don't want them to flatten out like a pancake. You just want it so that the bushings are touching up against the metal areas of the control arm and the sway bar itself. So, I can see that they're touching all the way around. I'm just going to go a teeny bit more here. I'm going to put my pinky right up against it. And as you can tell, the amount of the shaft that's sticking up is approximately the width of my pinky. That should be pretty good right there. I can tell that there's no movement that's going to happen between the bushings and the bar, or the bushings in the lower control arm, and they're definitely not pancaked down.

We'll grab those lug nuts. Start them all on there. Let's bottom these out. Now, we'll bring it down to the ground, and we'll make it so the wheel is just barely touching enough, so the wheel can't spin. Now, let's do the lug nuts, 140 foot-pounds. Go crisscross. Torqued.
Now, it's going to be time to get the center cover on. Before you go ahead and pound it on there, just take a look at the back, you're going to see something that looks a lot like a valve stem. Line it up. It's going to go pretty much just like this. Light bonk and then, of course, clean up your wheel, make it look nice and pretty, and take it for a road test.