Okay everyone, so this past weekend I tackled the job of replacing the front shocks on my envoy. The rears were done in the fall last year and were super easy but the fronts were OEM as well and the ride was still bouncy so I replaced them.
Estimated time to completion: 1-1.5 hours each side (my first one took me 2 hours since it was my very first strut job so I was being very slow to understand everything and keep myself safe as I was working alone. the second one took me 45 mins)
Difficulty level: varies by user, I would rate it at moderate
Safety notice: Springs on our truck are under a TON of tension, do not attempt to remove the mounting spring without the use of spring compressors to hold the tension back or it will unload and seriously hurt you. Also when compressing the spring, do NOT put your hand at either end of the spring, I instead had mine so one was holding the side of the spring while my other hand was on the impact gun to compress the spring. If you are not comfortable compressing the spring see if a local shop will allow you to bring in the old assembly and new shock and swap over the spring to the new shock. Usually shops are like $50 or so for this transfer.
Tools I used:
- 3-ton hydraulic jack
- 3 3-ton jack stands
- Air compressor
- impact gun
- metric impact sockets
- Open end box wrenches
- strut spring compressors (I loaned them from advance auto and returned them the same day after I was done)
- anti-seize lubricant (not really needed but will make things go in a little easier and come off easier if you do them again in the future)
- PB Blaster (to soak the nuts and bolts as well as pinch bolt before I removed the assembly)
- Torque wrench (not really needed, I will admit I didn't torque mine to spec, I know I went a little past them but you can feel when bolts are tightened all the way)
- Impact wrench extensions
- metric hand held socket set
- hand held sledge hammer
- crowbar/pry bar
- 2 step ladder to climb up and get under the hood while the truck is jacked in the air
- locking pliers
I bought the bilstein HD shocks for the entire truck from shockwarehouse (mods, if I am not allowed to say where I bought them please let me know) and they came to me fast. The rears were a quick 15 minute swap each side, the front however, not so much. It took me 2 hours on the very first one as I never worked on a strut tower and wanted to be 100% sure I was safe as to not hurt myself. The way my approach is different than the one that is outlined in the GM repair manual is that I did not remove the shock from the yoke, I pulled the whole assembly right out of the truck. Here is how I did it.
1.) Engage your parking brake and chock the rear wheels both on front and back to prevent it from rolling off the jack/jack stands
2,) Jack up your trucks entire front end evenly using the cross frame that goes from one side to the other just under the radiator.
3.) Put 2 jack stands under the cross frame you jacked up the truck with
4.) Take off one of your tires that you wish to start with first and set it aside.
5.) Take a third jack stand and put it underneath the lower control arm to as to support the entire assembly for when you remove the whole strut from the truck. Note: When doing this, you do NOT want any pressure on the jack stand that will compress the shock/spring, you are just using the jack stand to hold up the whole assembly with the shock in its fully extended position, do NOT let it just hang freely as you will damage your brake lines and possibly tear your CV boots.
6.) Next with a step ladder to make it easier to get up under the hood remove the 2 bolts that secure the shock mount to the frame of your truck. do NOT unbolt the center nut! Keep that on and tightened! You are only unbolting the 2 outer bolts from the frame. (note: the drivers side is easiest but the passenger side I found easiest to remove the air intake duct and intake box to give me some more room to get in there. You will be a little cramped for room so extensions will work wonders for you.
7.) Next loosen up the bolts that secure the shock to the top of the yoke arm (I left mine in loosely but you can remove the bolt if you desire)
8.) Loosen up the nut that secures the shock yoke end to the lower control arm. Take this nut and put it at the very end of the bolt but do not remove it.
9.) With the nut at the end of the bolt, using a hand sledge hammer, start banging on the nut to break the yoke free from the mounting bolt. (Note: This location is on a compression style bolt that widens as you get further onto it and is very difficult to get off but with a few hard bangs with a hammer, it will come off)
10.) When you get the yoke off the lower mounting bolt that secures it to the lower control arm, remove the nut and then start moving the strut assembly out from the bottom. You will encounter an issue where the yoke will get stuck on the sway bar end links but that is no problem, if you use a pry bar or in my case a crowbar you can twist the yoke around on the shock to get it right off with ease.
11.) When you get the whole assembly out get your strut spring compressors and put them on the strut spring at the outermost points. What I did was to unbolt the compressors and start turning them around the spring to get it to the very bottom most position as I couldn't just slide it in there. I then removed the little finger pull pins from the compressor jaws and inserted them from the inside as our OEM springs are a little big and would not just clip around the spring without force.
12.) With the compressors setup and hand tightened, either use an impact wrench or ratchet and start tightening the spring compressors evenly. I myself used an air impact gun and set it to 4 out of 5 and oiled the threads on the spring compressor to let it glide without getting hot and snapping apart. I would put the impact gun on it so it was being turned in for 3 seconds each side. You will see if you are doing it evenly as if you are not the spring will start to bend and you need to get it centered or risk it snapping loose and hurting yourself.
13.) When you compress the spring enough you will see that the upper shock mount will start spinning freely around, at this point take a long screw driver and insert it between the coil springs and use it to pry the little plastic dust shield down so you can then insert a pair of locking pliers on the piston tightly. Next use your impact gun to loosen up the mounting bolt. You will need to hold the locking pliers in place while you do this.
14.) With the nut off you can then take the upper shock mount off (mine was all OEM at 136k miles so the rubber was fused to the spring so I used a flat head screwdriver to pry it off the spring both at the top and bottom.
15.) Carefully remove the spring from the OEM shock and set it aside carefully.
16.) Inspect your upper shock mount, if the rubber is not chewed up, dry rotting, cracking you can re-use it on the new bilstein shock. Mine were drying and cracking so I ordered new moog shock mounts from rockauto.
17.) Take your shock with the yoke still attached and completely remove the securing nut/bolt that keeps the shock on the yoke. Now the hardest part of all this, you will need to hold the shock up with one hand and then use your other hand to bang the living death of the yoke to release it from the shock. Mine was so badly rusted that it took probably 10-12 hard blows to get it off. I tried to use a picklefork to spread it open but that didn't do crap as it was just too heavily rusted.
18.) When you get the yoke removed you can apply some anti-seize to the new bilstein shocks lower portion where it will be inserted in the yoke and insert the shock in the yoke. You may insert the nut and bolt but do NOT tighten it up, just put it on loosely.
19.) Transfer your compressed spring to the new shock and then put the new/old shock mount on the assembly.
20.) Apply some anti-seize to the threads and bolt it on tightly. Don't be concerned about torquing it to spec at this stage, I found it easier to do this when the strut was on the truck and under compression from the truck.
21.) Next with the entire assembly secured tightly, carefully loosen up the spring compressors while making sure that the little indentations of the mounting platforms are fully seated with the spring to prevent alignment issues where the spring can rub on the truck.
22.) With the spring now decompressed take the assembly to the truck and insert it at the top first. I inserted the top end in and then put the nuts on a few threads and then went to the yoke and twisted it on the lower bolt that attaches it to the lower control arm.
23.) With the assembly now rested in place, secure the lower control arm to yoke bolt tightly. (Torque to 81 lb ft)
24.) Secure the shock to yoke assembly. (Torque to 52 lb ft)
25.) Secure the two upper shock mount to frame bolts (Torque to 33 lb ft)
26.) Consider it a success at this point and repeat steps 5-25 for the other side
27.) With both sides now done lower the truck and with the wheels under tension of the truck torque the center bolt to 33 lb ft.
28.) Go have a ride and enjoy having a nice firm suspension setup that no longer bounces along the road!
If anyone has any questions about this process please feel free to ask me and I will help you out. Sorry I didn't post any pictures, when I work alone I don't stop to take pictures, I just work to get it done.
Estimated time to completion: 1-1.5 hours each side (my first one took me 2 hours since it was my very first strut job so I was being very slow to understand everything and keep myself safe as I was working alone. the second one took me 45 mins)
Difficulty level: varies by user, I would rate it at moderate
Safety notice: Springs on our truck are under a TON of tension, do not attempt to remove the mounting spring without the use of spring compressors to hold the tension back or it will unload and seriously hurt you. Also when compressing the spring, do NOT put your hand at either end of the spring, I instead had mine so one was holding the side of the spring while my other hand was on the impact gun to compress the spring. If you are not comfortable compressing the spring see if a local shop will allow you to bring in the old assembly and new shock and swap over the spring to the new shock. Usually shops are like $50 or so for this transfer.
Tools I used:
- 3-ton hydraulic jack
- 3 3-ton jack stands
- Air compressor
- impact gun
- metric impact sockets
- Open end box wrenches
- strut spring compressors (I loaned them from advance auto and returned them the same day after I was done)
- anti-seize lubricant (not really needed but will make things go in a little easier and come off easier if you do them again in the future)
- PB Blaster (to soak the nuts and bolts as well as pinch bolt before I removed the assembly)
- Torque wrench (not really needed, I will admit I didn't torque mine to spec, I know I went a little past them but you can feel when bolts are tightened all the way)
- Impact wrench extensions
- metric hand held socket set
- hand held sledge hammer
- crowbar/pry bar
- 2 step ladder to climb up and get under the hood while the truck is jacked in the air
- locking pliers
I bought the bilstein HD shocks for the entire truck from shockwarehouse (mods, if I am not allowed to say where I bought them please let me know) and they came to me fast. The rears were a quick 15 minute swap each side, the front however, not so much. It took me 2 hours on the very first one as I never worked on a strut tower and wanted to be 100% sure I was safe as to not hurt myself. The way my approach is different than the one that is outlined in the GM repair manual is that I did not remove the shock from the yoke, I pulled the whole assembly right out of the truck. Here is how I did it.
1.) Engage your parking brake and chock the rear wheels both on front and back to prevent it from rolling off the jack/jack stands
2,) Jack up your trucks entire front end evenly using the cross frame that goes from one side to the other just under the radiator.
3.) Put 2 jack stands under the cross frame you jacked up the truck with
4.) Take off one of your tires that you wish to start with first and set it aside.
5.) Take a third jack stand and put it underneath the lower control arm to as to support the entire assembly for when you remove the whole strut from the truck. Note: When doing this, you do NOT want any pressure on the jack stand that will compress the shock/spring, you are just using the jack stand to hold up the whole assembly with the shock in its fully extended position, do NOT let it just hang freely as you will damage your brake lines and possibly tear your CV boots.
6.) Next with a step ladder to make it easier to get up under the hood remove the 2 bolts that secure the shock mount to the frame of your truck. do NOT unbolt the center nut! Keep that on and tightened! You are only unbolting the 2 outer bolts from the frame. (note: the drivers side is easiest but the passenger side I found easiest to remove the air intake duct and intake box to give me some more room to get in there. You will be a little cramped for room so extensions will work wonders for you.
7.) Next loosen up the bolts that secure the shock to the top of the yoke arm (I left mine in loosely but you can remove the bolt if you desire)
8.) Loosen up the nut that secures the shock yoke end to the lower control arm. Take this nut and put it at the very end of the bolt but do not remove it.
9.) With the nut at the end of the bolt, using a hand sledge hammer, start banging on the nut to break the yoke free from the mounting bolt. (Note: This location is on a compression style bolt that widens as you get further onto it and is very difficult to get off but with a few hard bangs with a hammer, it will come off)
10.) When you get the yoke off the lower mounting bolt that secures it to the lower control arm, remove the nut and then start moving the strut assembly out from the bottom. You will encounter an issue where the yoke will get stuck on the sway bar end links but that is no problem, if you use a pry bar or in my case a crowbar you can twist the yoke around on the shock to get it right off with ease.
11.) When you get the whole assembly out get your strut spring compressors and put them on the strut spring at the outermost points. What I did was to unbolt the compressors and start turning them around the spring to get it to the very bottom most position as I couldn't just slide it in there. I then removed the little finger pull pins from the compressor jaws and inserted them from the inside as our OEM springs are a little big and would not just clip around the spring without force.
12.) With the compressors setup and hand tightened, either use an impact wrench or ratchet and start tightening the spring compressors evenly. I myself used an air impact gun and set it to 4 out of 5 and oiled the threads on the spring compressor to let it glide without getting hot and snapping apart. I would put the impact gun on it so it was being turned in for 3 seconds each side. You will see if you are doing it evenly as if you are not the spring will start to bend and you need to get it centered or risk it snapping loose and hurting yourself.
13.) When you compress the spring enough you will see that the upper shock mount will start spinning freely around, at this point take a long screw driver and insert it between the coil springs and use it to pry the little plastic dust shield down so you can then insert a pair of locking pliers on the piston tightly. Next use your impact gun to loosen up the mounting bolt. You will need to hold the locking pliers in place while you do this.
14.) With the nut off you can then take the upper shock mount off (mine was all OEM at 136k miles so the rubber was fused to the spring so I used a flat head screwdriver to pry it off the spring both at the top and bottom.
15.) Carefully remove the spring from the OEM shock and set it aside carefully.
16.) Inspect your upper shock mount, if the rubber is not chewed up, dry rotting, cracking you can re-use it on the new bilstein shock. Mine were drying and cracking so I ordered new moog shock mounts from rockauto.
17.) Take your shock with the yoke still attached and completely remove the securing nut/bolt that keeps the shock on the yoke. Now the hardest part of all this, you will need to hold the shock up with one hand and then use your other hand to bang the living death of the yoke to release it from the shock. Mine was so badly rusted that it took probably 10-12 hard blows to get it off. I tried to use a picklefork to spread it open but that didn't do crap as it was just too heavily rusted.
18.) When you get the yoke removed you can apply some anti-seize to the new bilstein shocks lower portion where it will be inserted in the yoke and insert the shock in the yoke. You may insert the nut and bolt but do NOT tighten it up, just put it on loosely.
19.) Transfer your compressed spring to the new shock and then put the new/old shock mount on the assembly.
20.) Apply some anti-seize to the threads and bolt it on tightly. Don't be concerned about torquing it to spec at this stage, I found it easier to do this when the strut was on the truck and under compression from the truck.
21.) Next with the entire assembly secured tightly, carefully loosen up the spring compressors while making sure that the little indentations of the mounting platforms are fully seated with the spring to prevent alignment issues where the spring can rub on the truck.
22.) With the spring now decompressed take the assembly to the truck and insert it at the top first. I inserted the top end in and then put the nuts on a few threads and then went to the yoke and twisted it on the lower bolt that attaches it to the lower control arm.
23.) With the assembly now rested in place, secure the lower control arm to yoke bolt tightly. (Torque to 81 lb ft)
24.) Secure the shock to yoke assembly. (Torque to 52 lb ft)
25.) Secure the two upper shock mount to frame bolts (Torque to 33 lb ft)
26.) Consider it a success at this point and repeat steps 5-25 for the other side
27.) With both sides now done lower the truck and with the wheels under tension of the truck torque the center bolt to 33 lb ft.
28.) Go have a ride and enjoy having a nice firm suspension setup that no longer bounces along the road!
If anyone has any questions about this process please feel free to ask me and I will help you out. Sorry I didn't post any pictures, when I work alone I don't stop to take pictures, I just work to get it done.
I just said in response to Mooseman that no matter what I did and no matter how hard I beat on mine it refused to budge. Sorry, I should have quoted him to avoid confusion.