Over the weekend, I installed the Toytec BOSS 3" lift, SPC Light Racing UCAs and had the NITTO Trail Grapplers 285/70/R17 mounted on the FUEL Octane 17 x 8.5 wheels.
It took me 14 hours to install the lift and UCAs including the diff drop, front sway bar drop, radiator bracket drop and rear bump stop drops. I did 80% of it by myself. I had my 13 year old son for a few hours (mostly watching). I gave him some time with the air tools and tried to explain what I was doing but he was not super interested. My wife helped me with the UCAs and kept me company til midnight on Friday night.
I found a lot of great info on installing these lifts but it was somewhat fragmented across several threads. I took some pictures and made some notes on things that were either not mentioned in the installation instructions from Toytec or that I have not found pics and details on the forum.
Some of my notes:
1. Make sure you have your vehicle supported properly and safely. I did not have any problems with this, but I did take about an hour and a half jacking up and supporting my vehicle including removing the wheels.
2. I did one wheel at a time for a couple of reasons. First, I am not a professional mechanic and I didn't want to mix parts or get confused. Second, I was working by myself and this just made more sense to me.
3. You will absolutely need a helper for replacing UCAs. There just is no way to pull the bolt out from the engine compartment
and hold the UCA / wiggle it from down by the hub assembly.
4. If you don't have a torque wrench rent one for free from O'Reilly or Autozone. IT'S FREE.
5. Just rent spring compressors for the rear springs. IT'S FREE. Why mess around with shade tree and potentially unsafe alternatives. Even though I used spring compressors the heavy duty rear springs still required me to jack up the opposite side of the rear axle from where I was working with the rear sway bar disconnected. When you use the spring compressor keep the bolt heads facing the ground it will make removal easier. I had them facing up the first time and I could remove them but it was a PITA. Also, spend some time planning how you will position them keeping in mind the bolts will come out the other side of the spring holder and depending on how much you compress they could contact the vehicle when you try to install them.
6. Air tools make the job so much more pleasant. I also had the pleasure of working on a brand new vehicle (150 miles). It was like butta!!
7. Mechanics gloves make the job easier on your hands.
8. Take your time to thread the bolts into the aluminum spacer blocks. I got one bolt a little crooked on the sway bar spacer and nearly cross-threaded it. I had to use some force to keep it straight and then my air ratchet to drive it in straight
Step 1 - Remove Skid Plates: Remove the front plastic under bumper cover, front skid plate and rear skid plate.
Step 2 - Support the vehicle: Front jack point. You will need a hi-lift floor jack or you will need to use the bottle jack on some bricks / blocks of wood. My orange harbor freight 3 ton floor jack was about 2" too short.
Pic of my vehicle on jack stands.
Step 3 - Disconnect Sway Bar: Disconnect and remove front sway bar. Since I was going to install sway bar spacers it was easy to just remove the sway bar at this time. I don't have pics of the sway bar but that should be easy to find.
Sway Bar End Links
Step 4 - Disconnect ABS Sensor: Disconnect the ABS Wire at the hub, the lower bracket, the plastic clip and the upper bracket. I pulled the wire connector and wire up into the engine compartment to avoid stretching and breaking it. Lots of info on here about breaking them ($50 each to replace) but I have not seen any pics.
ABS sensor connector at the hub. I had to use a small flat blade screwdriver to
gently pry up the tab that was holding the connector because I could not figure out where to squeeze to release it.
Remove the lower bracket.
I used pliers to gently squeeze the tabs on the backside of this plastic connector and remove it.
Remove the upper bracket on the UCA. Since I was replacing my UCAs I was going to need to remove all these connectors for the ABS wire anyway.
I gently pulled the wire up into the engine compartment through this opening in the fender.
I tried to trace the wire in red looking down into engine compartment.
Step 5 - Front Coil Overs: Begin using the instructions from Toytec they cover everything you need at this point. I also replaced the Upper Control Arms and I tried each front wheel differently. The instructions on the UCAs were adequate. Driver's side I replaced the coil over first and then the UCA. Passenger side I removed the UCA and then the coil over at the same time. I think removing the UCA and then the coil over was easier because you have more room, but you will need a helper and/or a good strategy for supporting the hub because it will only be attached by the CV joint and the steering linkage at this point. I used my floor jack under the rotor with a block of wood between the jack and rotor to support the hub assembly. Then I used a cargo strap to keep it from moving around too much.
From this point you just re-assemble in reverse. The instructions for the differential drop, sway bar drop and radiator bracket drop were adequate.
Step 6 - Rear Shocks and Springs: The rear was much easier than the front because there is less to disconnect / reconnect. The rear took me 4 hours from start to vehicle back on the ground.
I did not take pics of the rear until the finished install. The Toytec instructions are good enough. I did not rent a coil spring compressor before I started but after using a pry bar to pry the stock spring out of the driver rear and then seeing that the Toytec HD Springs were a good 2- 3 " taller I said enough, go rent a spring compressor. I did not disconnect the pan hard which I read as a method on another thread. I did use my floor jack on the opposite side of the axle to cause the hub to drop lower on the side where I was working. Just be careful when you are doing the second spring because you could end up raising the vehicle off your supporting jack stands when jacking up against the new stronger coil.
Whew! I can breathe again!
Linear Mode
