Created on: 2021-07-09
Andy shows you a quick fix that you can do yourself to level out the ride of your pickup truck!
Do you have a truck and you wanna make it look a little more aggressive like this one? Well, in this video, we're gonna show you how to do that with a leveling kit.
All right. Take a look at this truck, take a real good look at the truck, especially the wheel wells. If you notice in the front, it looks like it's tipped down a little bit, in the back, it's up. Now from the factory, most trucks are set up like this on purpose. The reason why is if you put a load in the back or you're towing something, the rear is not gonna be sagging as much. If you don't like the way the truck looks, you want it to be a little more aggressive, maybe you know it is a truck, you want it to look tough, you want bigger tires, and you don't wanna put a major lift kit in it, there is an alternative. You can install something called a leveling kit, this goes on the front shocks, and it's gonna raise up the front suspension so that it levels out the vehicle. Now for this kit, we're actually gonna do the rear as well. So it's gonna raise up the front about 2 inches and raise up the rear about an inch. And at that point, the whole truck should be level. The truck looks okay like it is, let's make it look awesome.
Because these spacers mount to the top of the spring assembly, we have to remove it. Which if you got one of the ones that just mount to the bottom, you don't necessarily have to remove the whole thing, you could just pry up on the bottom and slip it in there. So the spacer is gonna go on the stock spring assembly. And because you're still using the stock springs, it's not gonna change your ride a whole lot, which is good, it's still gonna ride just as comfortable as without this, it's just gonna be a little bit taller. All these kits are a little bit different. And if you had one that was thinner and your studs were still poking through, then you'd have to make some modifications to the top of the spring assembly, but we don't have to because we got ones that are just thick enough. And then also, some will have studs that will come through the new adapter like this one, or some you will have to bolt on from the top, just like that. But for this one, we're gonna have the adapters go through, the studs go through. On studs you don't wanna move, it's always a good idea to use some thread lock adhesive. Then it just bolts to the top. And if you had studs poking through, you're gonna have to trim those down. We're good.
And you're gonna wanna torque those on to factory specs. Because the studs are not in the exact locations where the factory studs are, we actually have to rotate this spring assembly once we install it because otherwise, the bolts aren't gonna line up. Different kits may have you turning the strut or the shock assembly, spinning it at the bottom instead of the top. It just depends on the kit. Now let's get it back in the vehicle. When you're reinstalling it in the vehicle, we are gonna have to lower the lower control arm a little bit more, but you wanna be careful of the CV shaft. You don't wanna extend the CV shaft so far that it actually breaks or ruins something in that. And same with the brake hose. If you're worried about the brake hose, you could always take the caliper off and just hang it from the side. This is the area of concern with the CV shaft. If I lower this down too much more, you're gonna put a lot of strain on this area. So keep in mind that right there.
So I'm just gonna use a ratchet strap, I'd recommend putting that on before you take this apart. For the rear, we're removing the factory spacer that goes on the leaf spring and installing this spacer. Now it doesn't look like it's much, but it's gonna be more significant than you think. So we'll lower down the rear differential, put this in place, put some new U-bolts in, torque them down, and we should be good to go.
So we got that side done and I left the U-bolts loose right now. Now we're gonna do the opposite side, get that done. And when it's all together, we'll torque all the bolts down.
Now it looks like a real truck. It's subtle but effective. I just need some mud terrains, a roll bar, and I'll be good to go. If you enjoyed this video, make sure you subscribe to our channel, ring the bell, turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our videos.
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