Question on Bilstein shocks
I installed the Bilstein shocks over the weekend. It all worked out in the end, but here is my summary of the modifications and workarounds I found necessary.
1. The upper bushings on the rear shocks had 5/8" holes. I had to drill them out to 11/16". I have to say, the brand new 11/16 bit cut through them like butter.
2. The front shocks had no dust boots. I didn't like that, so I bought these accordion-style boots from Summit. I was afraid the blue plastic ones that 1WildRT posted above were so large in diameter that they might scrape on the upper arms. Plus I wanted black, not blue.
3. The rubber bushings for the upper end of the front shocks have little nubs that are supposed to center the bushings on the holes in the inner fender. The supplied bushings had a nub that was only about 3/8" in diameter — much smaller than the nub in the old bushings. The hole is more like 3/4" inch, so these would allow the bushing to shift around in the hole. I reused the old bushings, which were perfectly intact, though a little hard. I used the new washers, because shiny.
4. The nut on the top end of the new shocks was metric 17mm. This just irks me because I don't carry any metric tools in my car. It also irked me because it was a nyloc nut, which meant it had to be run down the entire 1" plus of thread using a box wrench while holding the tip of the shaft from rotating with another wrench. I didn't have time for that nonsense, so I went to Lowe's and bought some regular metric 10 x 1.5 nuts, and torqued these down to spec, then ran the nylocs down on top of them for safety. On my old shocks, I had used a regular nut and a jam nut. IMO you should never use nyloc nuts in a situation that calls for a torque spec.
Hope this helps someone with their future installation.
I installed the Bilstein shocks over the weekend. It all worked out in the end, but here is my summary of the modifications and workarounds I found necessary.
1. The upper bushings on the rear shocks had 5/8" holes. I had to drill them out to 11/16". I have to say, the brand new 11/16 bit cut through them like butter.
2. The front shocks had no dust boots. I didn't like that, so I bought these accordion-style boots from Summit. I was afraid the blue plastic ones that 1WildRT posted above were so large in diameter that they might scrape on the upper arms. Plus I wanted black, not blue.
3. The rubber bushings for the upper end of the front shocks have little nubs that are supposed to center the bushings on the holes in the inner fender. The supplied bushings had a nub that was only about 3/8" in diameter — much smaller than the nub in the old bushings. The hole is more like 3/4" inch, so these would allow the bushing to shift around in the hole. I reused the old bushings, which were perfectly intact, though a little hard. I used the new washers, because shiny.
4. The nut on the top end of the new shocks was metric 17mm. This just irks me because I don't carry any metric tools in my car. It also irked me because it was a nyloc nut, which meant it had to be run down the entire 1" plus of thread using a box wrench while holding the tip of the shaft from rotating with another wrench. I didn't have time for that nonsense, so I went to Lowe's and bought some regular metric 10 x 1.5 nuts, and torqued these down to spec, then ran the nylocs down on top of them for safety. On my old shocks, I had used a regular nut and a jam nut. IMO you should never use nyloc nuts in a situation that calls for a torque spec.
Hope this helps someone with their future installation.
