Tips For Rear Spacer Installation? Failed 1st Attempt.

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Dave Legacy

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Hey Everyone,

I completed the installation of a 2” RC level kit on my 2016 Yukon XL SLT 4WD yesterday - went pretty smoothly. The rear sits only about 0.25” higher with a full tank of fuel and no passengers or cargo.

I have a 0.75” rear spacer from Daystar that I tried to install, but I couldn’t get the tension off the coil springs. Can I get some advice from those who have done this DIY? I’m not sure what I did wrong.

• I put the truck on stands at the frame rails.
• bottle jacks under the axle on both sides.
• disconnected upper sway bar endlink points.
• disconnected lower shock mounts.
• disconnected ABS brackets (2 per side)
• disconnected brake line brackets (center and sides)
• disconnected parking brake cable hangers (2).

I then slowly lowered the axle as far as it would go, but the coils never released. I think the error was that I should raise one side of the axle upward and lower the other for a greater articulation and avoiding bringing down the diff pumpkin? Is there something else I missed?

I really don’t want to have to fuss with coil spring compressors. I’ve used them before and I’ve never been all the comfortable with it.

Also, a shop told me I should get new shocks otherwise I’m going to top out the stock shocks. I haven’t heard much mention to this before. Have any of you upgraded to longer travel shocks for small coil spacer upgrades?

Best regards,
 

iamdub

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Hey Everyone,

I completed the installation of a 2” RC level kit on my 2016 Yukon XL SLT 4WD yesterday - went pretty smoothly. The rear sits only about 0.25” higher with a full tank of fuel and no passengers or cargo.

I have a 0.75” rear spacer from Daystar that I tried to install, but I couldn’t get the tension off the coil springs. Can I get some advice from those who have done this DIY? I’m not sure what I did wrong.

• I put the truck on stands at the frame rails.
• bottle jacks under the axle on both sides.
• disconnected upper sway bar endlink points.
• disconnected lower shock mounts.
• disconnected ABS brackets (2 per side)
• disconnected brake line brackets (center and sides)
• disconnected parking brake cable hangers (2).

I then slowly lowered the axle as far as it would go, but the coils never released. I think the error was that I should raise one side of the axle upward and lower the other for a greater articulation and avoiding bringing down the diff pumpkin? Is there something else I missed?

I really don’t want to have to fuss with coil spring compressors. I’ve used them before and I’ve never been all the comfortable with it.

Also, a shop told me I should get new shocks otherwise I’m going to top out the stock shocks. I haven’t heard much mention to this before. Have any of you upgraded to longer travel shocks for small coil spacer upgrades?

Best regards,

Sounds like you're doing everything correctly. The coils just may be too tall. On my '08, I can just barely get mine out with the rear fully drooped, so they surely won't go back in with spacers underneath them. My suggestion is to install compressors first, with the weight of the vehicle on the springs. You don't have to tighten the compressors other than maybe 1-2 turns just to have tension to hold them in position. All you need is to hold the springs at their normal compressed height. Then, jack up the body and see if you can slip the spacers in without unbolting everything else.
 
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Dave Legacy

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Sounds like you're doing everything correctly. The coils just may be too tall. On my '08, I can just barely get mine out with the rear fully drooped, so they surely won't go back in with spacers underneath them. My suggestion is to install compressors first, with the weight of the vehicle on the springs. You don't have to tighten the compressors other than maybe 1-2 turns just to have tension to hold them in position. All you need is to hold the springs at their normal compressed height. Then, jack up the body and see if you can slip the spacers in without unbolting everything else.

Thanks, this is a great idea. I’ll get my hands on a spring compressor and try this out. Worst case scenario I just use the thing and get this task behind me.
 

iamdub

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Thanks, this is a great idea. I’ll get my hands on a spring compressor and try this out. Worst case scenario I just use the thing and get this task behind me.

I just remembered a trick I did years ago. The spring compressors I had borrowed from Autozone were too big to work with. I had the style that uses the wide forked plates with the screw in the middle and the ones that come in pairs and clamp to the outside (strut spring compressors). Both just wouldn't fit in the space I was working in.

I got two lengths of small chain (welded/closed links), very much like the safety chains on a small utility trailer, and ran them through the coils on each side of the spring, positioned just like how the strut spring compressors would be. I had my nearly-400lb neighbor sit in the cargo area to squat the suspension a little more. I put a bolt and nut through each chain in the links that lined up with all the slack taken out. When my neighbor got out of the car, the springs were already noticeably compressed. Jacking up the body was enough to let the springs come out before the suspension was fully drooped. Using my neighbor probably wasn't absolutely necessary, but it was a quick and easy way to compress the springs that much more and ensure that I wouldn't have to disconnect anything further with the suspension.
 
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Dave Legacy

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I got it done. A pretty enormous PITA if I do say so myself. Spring compressors were absolutely necessary and they were tricky to use because of the hard brake line on the axle.

When I put the daystar spacer on the spring seat/cone it felt a little sloppy, so I tried putting the stock spring isolator on first underneath and it tightened things up. I had no instructions from Daystar, so in the moment I just kinda had to use logic. Hopefully this is OK because I sure as heck don’t want to do this again any time soon!

Thanks, dub - for the solid advice.

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