I just swapped out my front and rears 2 weeks ago with Bilstein HD's and the ride has greatly improved, as expected, because I was still riding on the original tokico's with 250,000kms on them. The ride on the Bilsteins makes a dramatic difference....nice and taught!
I bought the Bilsteins from Autoanything, the complete set was $253 after using a promo code....this was the best price I could find.
I had to cut the rear shocks off after trying to dick around with the nuts. It's easy to cut them with a reciprocating saw with the proper metal blade.
I also had to cut the front shock top plate nut after compressing the spring, because I couldn't get the nut loose. (I didn't have air-tools mind you)
All in all, the job is straight forward. I could probably do it in a 1/4 of the time if I had to do it again.
I'm glad I did this job myself and saved some money.
One more thing to add, when I was researching the 'how to' on this and other forums, I came across a link with said to use the stock bottle jack to push the A-arm assemblies down when re-installing the front shocks.....this worked really well. Simply put the bottle jack upside down at the top of the wheel well, with the base on the wheel well, and the top of the jack secure against the nut on the upper A-arm. This made installing the Bilstein's a breeze.
Hope this helps.
I bought the Bilsteins from Autoanything, the complete set was $253 after using a promo code....this was the best price I could find.
I had to cut the rear shocks off after trying to dick around with the nuts. It's easy to cut them with a reciprocating saw with the proper metal blade.
I also had to cut the front shock top plate nut after compressing the spring, because I couldn't get the nut loose. (I didn't have air-tools mind you)
All in all, the job is straight forward. I could probably do it in a 1/4 of the time if I had to do it again.
I'm glad I did this job myself and saved some money.
One more thing to add, when I was researching the 'how to' on this and other forums, I came across a link with said to use the stock bottle jack to push the A-arm assemblies down when re-installing the front shocks.....this worked really well. Simply put the bottle jack upside down at the top of the wheel well, with the base on the wheel well, and the top of the jack secure against the nut on the upper A-arm. This made installing the Bilstein's a breeze.
Hope this helps.
