2003 Chevy Trailblazer LTZ 4x4 I6
67,000 miles $9,999
MarkMC Liftmeister kit 2.5" lift on all 4 corners
Mark's Wheel Spacers (1.5" if I recall? not 100% on that)
Nitto Terra Grappler AT tires 265/70 on stock 17" wheels
I have to apologize for the lack of pictures during the install, my friend and I thought everything was going to be pretty straight forward but we hit a few snags.
First issue we had was removing the center nut on the first strut assembly. We started the project Saturday morning at about 10am and this first issue kept us tied up for a good six hours lol.
Everything we tried (impact wrench, vice grips on the very upper shock shaft, and a few other tricks) didnt make any difference the shaft just kept on spinning and we could not get that nut to come loose. I finally gave up on it went to a local auto parts store and bought a new set of front struts (think they were about $82 a piece) I figured with nearly 93,000+ miles on the truck I was probably due for a set sometime relatively soon anyway. Next stop was the hardware store, I picked up cheap dremel and cut the dam nut off! MUHAHAHA power tools shall prevail!
The next issue we had was getting the front lower control arm to drop low enough to slide the lower strut mount back on. After some advice from Mark over the phone and via email we finally found a spot we could get some leverage on to drop it just enough to slide on. I suspect something we did in reassembly made this part significantly harder than it should have been but we got it.
Thankfully the second front strut (passenger side) was MUCH easier! First strut took us about 7hrs to do between the 15 min trips to the stores. The second I think we had completely done and reassembled in about 2hrs. When we did the second strut we gripped the very top of the shaft with a pair of vice grips as before and gave that center nut a kick with his electric impact driver and it come right off. Just that saved me an hour of cutting away at the nut while waiting for the dremel to cool off im sure.
We kinda jinxed our selves on the rear saying how easy they would be. The issue we had was the top of the rear spacer (the raised section) was just a bit to large to fit up inside the spring by hand. so we had to get about 3" or so of clearance to be able to slide the spacers under the compressed springs. Problem was we couldnt compress the springs anymore beacuse the top of our spring compressors were extending up above the top of the spring and causing interference. We finally found a bottle jack and used it to jack the axel down farther (placed the bottle jack between the frame and the axel) and that gave us plenty of room to slip the spacers in.
All said and done including trips to the store for parts / tools. It took us about 12hrs not counting our very short breaks. If your going to take this project on, if you can I'd suggest replacing your front struts while your at it. Then you can just cut up your stockers if needed like I did (BE SURE TO STILL USE THE SPRING COMPRESSOR! ;o) !!!) you wont want to do it all again to replace them later on anyway.
Next step for me is finding a place for a full size spare and some new rear shocks I can definitely tell now that they are on their last leg they are more than a little "bouncy".
And now the results!
Below is with the lift on still on the stock size rubber
And here is the end result (for now...
)
Just as Mark said when I asked him with the spacers the tires fit just fine with no cutting trimming or grinding. Could probably have gone a bit larger, but maybe not when I looked it was dark and 11pm
)I cant thank Mark enough for all his help, truely the best Customer Service ever answered all my questions 20x quicker than I would have ever expected. And was a great help on the phone and via email with pictures / suggestions when we ran into problems. I cant recommend his superior product enough.
Now I just cant wait to go play in the dirt... but now my issue is the closest friend that could come join me incase one of us gets stuck is 4hrs away... grrrrr o well maybe in a few more weeks I can make another trip down.
