[jerry57g]

It took a while and numerous words and extra parts but I got the leveling kit installed. 2" front and 1" rear. Had to cut/burn out the lower strut bushing due to frozen bolts both sides. replaced the sway bar end due to being junk also. The videos on youtube helped a lot! Especially how to reinstall the strut with the lift block. Wow Two jacks and a rachet strap! the rear lift was easier but had issues with lug nuts. They have a fancy shiny cover on them that none of the sockets in my sets fit right. Figured out it was a 23mm ended up having to cut the cover off the ones on one side due to being so jacked up. But the rear was easy peasy especially after I decided to use the angle grinder wrench on the u-bolts and simply cut them off. A little aligning with a bar and the spacer dropped right in. I ended cutting off @1 1/2" of the new clamps as they must be a generic size still have @ 1 1/2 above the nut. Only issue now is of course it drives awful shaking (more like a vibration)like a leaf in a storm. I'm guessing that this is normal made an appt next week for an alignment.

 

[dadditruck]

Very Nice!

 

[jerry57g]

Part #2: Crawled under to eyeball everything annnnd saw that the CV boots on both sides were junk!!! I was so focused on the strut work I forgot to check them. So I went and got new half shafts as I have never had luck with new boots on anything. Tore the whole front apart again tried it the way the manual said to but that would imply that the bearing housings aren't frozen to the steering knuckle! took off the steering knuckle and still ended up cutting the half shafts with the angle grinder wrench. this freed up the knuckle to get a better shot at the lower ball joint to knock it loose. Once that was done the rest was easy-ish. Got the new shafts in and all put back together. And another Dodge makes really crappy lugnuts. What is with the chrome sheet metal covering that no socket will fit? I ordered new ones, they look the same but are solid metal, I'll do the old take one off put one on trick to replace them. It even drives a lot better maybe they were bad and needed to be replaced anyway. Now its off to get the alignment done.

 

[radioactive]

Generally I've found that once those chrome covers come off, you just have to downsize 1 mm to the next smallest lug nut impact socket.

 

[02GenDakota]

Looks awesome!

 

[jerry57g]

Had the front aligned and it still had the serious shake when accelerating. So I brought it home and removed the 2" lift block in the front. I must be getting way too good tearing the front apart it only took me 1.5 hours to do all of the ripout/re-install. And lo and behold no more shake. So I'm going to leave the rear blocks in for now as the truck looks pretty good and level. I think the new struts/springs in front did enough. At least that is what I'm telling myself for now. So now I have a set of 2" lift blocks if anyone wants them.