More progress.
Front and rear sway bars installed. Brothers kit.
Rear shock relocation brackets installed. CPP via the Brothers kit.
New drop shocks installed on all 4. Brothers kit.
Having help from a buddy would have made the job a lot easier but I managed. A neighbor came over and helped me with the front. Basically you just assemble the whole thing. Mock it up. Mark your holes. Drill. Install.
But of course I got upgraded sway bar up front, and rear never existed. So the front stock sway bar brackets had to be removed as they didn't work anymore. So that meant cross cutting the rivet heads, air hammer to pop the rivets out, then expanding the holes with a step bit for the new bolts, and all over my new POR15 job. Not that I was too worried about that but wish I mocked it up before I painted....
Same goes for the rear shock relocator brackets. Wish i knew i needed those before I painted. So I ended up using some VHT gloss black enamel(matches the POR15 pretty good) on the holes I cut.
The rear shock re-locator brackets were same, pop the rivets out, expand holes, paint for rust. Not much to them really.
Rear shock locator bracket next to the old bracket.
Lower shock relocator bracket next to original:
Installed:
I didn't like the bolts that came in the relocator kit for the lower shock mount. It was just a bolt. So I bought 1 new lower shock bolt and reused one of the original ones still in good shape. They seemed to fit and setup the angles a lot better. Also had to enlarge the bracket hole to accept the new bolt.
When it came to the rear sway bar install, the kit came with these brackets to attach the poly mount. It mounts under the trailing arms. Well the dang holes didn't line up right to be on one side of the trailing arm nor did they line up right to put one hole on one side of the arm and the other hole on the opposite side. So I found a solution. I enlarged the holes so the bolt had enough room to slide apart to get the bolts installed on opposite sides of the trailing arms. Used a double washer deal to keep the bolt from sliding through the enlarged holes. The nuts on top of the trailing arm lips was far enough away I could get a wrench on the nuts too. I had to use the "small space" washers too, worked out good.
And this is the only pic I got of the front sway bar. Sorry guys, spoiler alert, sneak peak of my next post coming soon...
