I finally found an evening that I could focus on doing this lift. Big thanks to everyone here for the various write ups and responses to my questions. I doubt I would have attempted this job without all the great info on this site. I hope this little writeup contributes to the cause.
I love doing this kind of thing myself. It always feels great to accomplish these projects -not to mention the money we save by doing it ourselves!
I leveled the front with 1" spacers (2"lift) from
HERE . I decided to use these instead of the Daystars because I could skip a couple steps, by not having to fully compress the springs and press the old bolts out (as is needed with Daystars). I actually had bought the Daystars and decided to use these instead. (I have my
Daystars for sale if anyone is interested). With this kit I still had to compress the springs, but only slightly just so I could rotate the strut so the new bolts would line up.
JA's WRITE UP was really helpful too. Although I found I didn't need to disconnect the steering linkage, or the ball joints either.
I went ahead and disconnected the XREAS too.
THIS THREAD indicates where it is safe to disconnect it and it worked perfectly. I only lost about 2 drops of fluid. Here are a bunch of pics of the job, before and after.
It took me about 5 hours with a break for dinner and a couple phone calls.
My measurements:
Before: 33" in front and 35.75" in the rear.
After: 35.125" in front and 35.75" in the rear.
I gained just a tad over 2" which was exactly what i was looking for.
Like many others have said it didn't effect the ride, and I also notice the nose seems much higher from the drivers seat.
Before:
After:
In Progress:
Instead of separating the ball joint - removed these 2 bolts:
Disconnected XREAS:
Disconnected XREAS (shock side):
Swaybar Moved:
Spacer I Used:
Spacer Installed:
Another After Shot: