Good day, everyone.

I thought I'd do a brief write-up regarding my adventures in swapping out the very worn, very tired XREAS from my 2003 Limited. This isn't intended to be a long and detailed explanation of how to do it. There are plenty of those on here. Think of this being more like a story. A horror story.

I jest. It wasn't bad, just took far longer than necessary. Maybe this will help some people save some time.

First, some background: I purchased my 2003 4Runner back in February, to replace my 2013 Tacoma. Why regress? Oil and gas is a terrible mistress. I had been out of work for a year from December 2015 until 2016 and when I finally got a new job, it wasn't enough to cover the mortgage and continue with the truck payments. So, it had to go. Call me crazy, but I prefer a roof over my head. There are probably posts still over on Tacoma World about it. Sold it to a nice kid from northern California.



Didn't take me long to rip off the running boards because A) the lights in them kept shorting out the fuse that also controls the interior lighting, the clock, the trip ODO and the keyless entry, and B) because the brackets were rusted to shi...er, poop...and the kid that owned it prior to me had done a MacGyver to keep them looking like they were securely fastened. They weren't.



That wouldn't have pissed me off so much if he had just told me.

Anyhow, the shocks were originals. How do I know? Well, I'm just guessing that in the 289,000 km or so, no one had replaced them for the $2k that Toyota was asking for just the shocks alone. Oh, and maybe they looked/felt like they were worn out. Compression? Rebound? That's for fancy folks.



Yes, I know that's rusty. I'm Canadian, eh. Kinda hard to escape rust up here.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago. New tires (Duratracs, 265/75R17) and rims (older Sequioa).





Looked a lot better. Still rode like the suspension was made from the tears of orphans. And so much scuffing. Weinstein never rubbed this much. Or was it Spacey?

Anyhow, ordered some goodies from 4WheelParts. New Bilsteins show up and man, are they beautiful: 6112s in front, and 5160s in the back. Yes, I could have gone 5100s, but with the age of the front springs, my lack of desire to try to find suitable replacements, and my plan to eventually overland this thing, I'm more of the one and done kind of guy. I don't want to revisit a project later, when I change my mind. Short term pain, long term gain, etc. The 6112s just made more sense.





Driver side on the 4th groove, passenger side on the second groove. According to Bilstein, this puts it around 2.15" lift on a V6. Since I have the V8 and extremely worn out suspension, I figured this was a good gamble. new hats from KYB and presto, ready to install. Side note, the KYBs come with these plastic condoms on the three studs. This made them look too large for the holes. I will admit that I was panicking that they wouldn't fit. It wasn't until we were ready to install them that I finally (yes, I was this dumb) realized that they had the plastic sleeves on them. Sliced them off and they were perfect. Told you, pitfalls. I'll know better for next time, you know better now.



Friday night, with my buddy's cool lift, I started on the rears.





What I discovered doing the rear shocks: with the original shocks on a 15 year old vehicle, it isn't likely that you're taking the top nut off, even with PB Blaster. I tried the reciprocating saw, but I dulled my last remaining metal blade in no time. So, tip to you guys: angle grinder with a cutoff wheel. Slice the nut a few times, twisting it to get a few different spots, then twist it off with your wrench. It took no time at all on the second one. Second tip: when tightening up the top nut on the new shock, use a gear wrench. I don't have a 19 mm one, but damn sure I will be adding it to the toolbox. Now, because I have XREAS and I was aware of the disassembly process, I completely ignored it because A) couldn't get to it and B) it was corroded solid. I ended up carefully tearing the line apart. Much to my surprise, I wasn't showered with pressurized hydraulic fluid.

On the first shock.

When I did the driver side, I was much dismayed when it went all "pssssssttttt" all over me. Much cursing also ensued.



Oh, the driver side, how I hated thee. Everything slipped into place much quicker than the passenger side, largely because I was getting better with this. Until it came to the top nut. See the clearance in the picture? Yeah, it isn't big enough for two fingers to hold the nut and get it on the top. Utilizing Vise Grips to compress the lower rubber cushion, I could get maybe three threads showing above the top washer. What I couldn't get was the nut started on those three threads.

Here come the needlenose pliers. There goes the nut. Several times, but not on the threads. Rather, it shot out of the pliers and landed on the ground a couple times, or on the frame rail. Except for the time it ended up between the frame and the gas tank.

F*ck.

Every combination of mirror and magnetic pickup tool and no luck. Call my neighbour (Canadian, remember) Chris to give me a ride to the Homeless Despot. They should have a M12 nut with a 1.5 thread, right?

Nope. By the way, it's 8:45 on a Friday night. So, over to Blowe's.

Hey, M12 in a 1.25 and a 1.75. Now, I'm Canadian and used to metric fasteners, but sonofa...back home, 9:15 and I dig out an endoscope camera that my buddy gave me. Except it won't work on my phone because USB C is awesome and the camera isn't USB C, so it's not awesome. Dig out the old tablet. It took 40 minutes to install software. Finally got it to work and found the nut. Put on the magnet attachment and by 11:15, I finally had my nut in my hands.

The shock nut. Pervs. This time, I bent the jaws of the pliers to grip the nut more carefully and tightly and finally got it started. Remember the gear wrench? Yeah? Get one. This job is mind numbing and tedious 1/16 of a turn at a time.

Midnight and the back is done. Finally! Put it back on the ground to position the lift better for the front end.



Saturday morning, with the assistance of my buddy and lift provider Steve, we realign the lift and put it back in the air. Just a piece of advice if you ever use the QuickJack, put your vehicle in neutral when you try to lift it. There was enough resistance when it lifts to slide it back on the lift, due to the way it articulates.

Follow the disassembly instructions in the Toyota repair manual. Remove the swaybar end link, pop the ball joint, remove the two bolts holding the lower control arm to the spindle, and loosen the adjusting cam bolts.

I apologize for not having photos of that, but there are a ton of them out there on how to remove the front shocks.

However, here are the mostly finished pictures.





Installed a swaybar relocation kit, as well. Torqued everything to spec.



And here's the pile of crap that came out.



Now, I didn't take measurements from the center of the wheel to the fender arch, but rather from the ground to the fender arch. It sits around the 36" mark, or very close to it, varying just a little bit from side to side and front to rear, so close that my OCD isn't even a little bit bothered.

For those of you who have read this far into it, yes, I am using the 5160s with the rear air system. I hadn't seen anything except guys pulling their RAS and replacing them with coils.

But I decided to gamble and see what happened.

And what happened was...nothing. It rides fine. It's very firm and soaks up bumps nicely. It's stable where the old system shuddered and writhed like Salma Hayek in "From Dusk Till Dawn". It corners pretty flatly for an SUV.

It will also raise and lowers like before. Truck goes up. Truck goes down.

Great write up, and about a good suspension setup option that a lot of other people will use.

Thanks. It was a lot work, but absolutely worth it.

Awesome detailed write up! I've been debating on getting a quickjack for a while. They seem very useful and more convenient \safer than jack and stands.

Great write up RobD, thanks for putting that together.

What do you have for up travel between the top of the rear axle and the bump stops?

Thanks

The QuickJack is amazing. Make sure you get the 5000 lb one, of course, and the truck blocks. It comes with 4 rubber blocks that you can position under your vehicle, but because of the location of the gas tank and cross member, you need more height than they provide. We use hockey pucks for the extra height (Canadians, after all) and they will work. But there is a better way.

I haven't measured, but I can take a look. I do know that I'm not bottoming out on them anymore. It is such a nice feeling not jarring your spinal column out of your butt when you hit a bump.

Did you have any rubbing issues with those 75 series tires? I'm thinking of putting those or 70's. Undecided still. Love the look of those.

Rubbed pretty good when turning before the lift. Zero rubbing now.

Cool thanks...I should be good then. Have about same lift height in the front.

I thought I'd post an update on my Bilstein adventure.

One year ago, I noticed a clunking noise from the rear end. I thought it might have been bushings because of the extreme cold we were having. Nope, it's a busted stem on the p/s 5160. Great. Dealer was no help with warranty information. Bought a new one and replaced busted one.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that my d/s 6112 is now leaking and covered in oil. Swell. Called dealer again, still no help.

I outlaid $1350 CDN dollars for the original set, $250 to replace the busted 5160, and who knows how much to replace a 6112 shock. I did fire off an "email of disappointment" to Bilstein to see what, if anything, they're going to do.

I suspect nothing. We'll see.

I really like the ride of this particular setup. However, having cost me this much in 3 years, I don't know that I can recommend the product.

Or maybe I'm crazy. Maybe 3 years of 99.99% city and highway driving is just too much for higher end Bilsteins.

Sigh.

Unlike the 5160 shocks, the 6112s do have a lifetime warranty. Bilstein should replace it for you but you'll have to fork out the postage to send it back to them. I went through the warranty replacement with a 5100 shock last year and they weren't real fast about it but in the end it was okay. They did want to see a sales receipt for the shock so hopefully you still have that. I just bought a pair of 6112s and one of them has a damaged shaft seal right out of the box. I'm waiting for Bilstein to replace it. I wont buy a Bilstein that doesn't have the lifetime warranty so for not much more I'm getting Fox shocks for the rear. The Fox shocks don't have a lifetime warranty but they should be a better shock and they are rebuildable when they leak.

I actually heard back from them today and they did clarify that the 6112s do have a lifetime warranty. So, I'll have to go back to the dealer that sold them to me. I'm still disappointed that a stem snapped on the 5160. How does that happen?

If you send it back to Bilstein, or dealer does, they can do a failure analysis on the shaft, which i'm sure they will, and maybe let you, through the dealer, know. Could be a number of things but application and/or abuse certainly shouldn't be one of them!