I ended up order replacements from General Spring and they showed up on Saturday. Sunday morning I started what should have been roughly a half day job, but it didn’t end up that way. I knew the truck had spent time back east in Connecticut, and had anticipated corrosion issues. I has PB blasted everything I could think of days in advance which helped but I still had lots of fun breaking things loose. I got started about 10:00 in the morning…
I decided to do the passenger side first since that was the broken side. I get the truck on jacks and the floor jack under the diff, and I start disconnecting the shocks at the bottom. Well, since the RSB gets in the way of the passenger side shock, I figure that it’s a good time to just pull that off. So after spending the time to take that off, I got the shocks disconnected and the passenger u-bolts off. With the bolts and shock off, the spring sagged even more and the axle un-stuck itself from the spring with a huge bang. Scared the crap out of me, but everything was ok.
Now to disconnect the spring from the truck. I found out the nut for the front pin is 22mm, of which I didn’t have that size socket, so off to Home Depot. I get back with the socket and began praising Nissan for inserting that pin from the inside out so close to the fuel tank. It’s great for assembling on the line, but sucks for working on later. I figure I’ll pull the shackle off so I can maneuver the front pin out.
The shackle put up a hell of a fight, mostly because the bushing had fused to the pin and I was trying to just take the spring off. Decided to take the whole shackle off and worry about the bushing later. I was now able to get the front pin out and spring off and it was time to deal with the bushing. It’s now around 3:00.
Since it was so fused in I thought surely I could at least a generic shackle and not have to deal with the one stuck in the spring. Called around to AZ, Oreilly and NAPA and was told they did so I went hunting. They were either drop or lift shackles and wouldn’t work, so I headed back and knew I’d have to torch it out. I burned through the rubber pretty quick and got the shackle out of the spring eye but the steel sleeve was still fused on the pin. After torching a few more times I was able to get it broken loose but it was not coming off. After 7-8 more times of torching and twisting with vice grips I finally got that little SOB off. So now were at about 6:00 in the evening.
At this point my only concern is getting the one side put back together. Everything is going great until I got to put the nut on the shackle where the spring attaches. Somewhere along the line while trying to get the sleeve off I goofed up the threads. The nut would start to cross thread and then it would pop off. After fighting it for a while I took off to AZ to get a tap/die set so I could clean up the threads. Got back and nothing in the kit was big enough for that bolt. Crap.
Ok, since I access to another vehicle and don’t need the truck, I put everything back together except that one nut. I got everything tightened really well but not torqued, and I was able to drive it back to where I had it parked before. I know the spring won’t just pop off the shackle without a lot of help, so I was good with moving the truck the small distance I needed to. Then I got everything cleaned up and put away and went in to clean up. It’s now 9:00.
Bear in mind I had never done this job before, so it was a huge learning experience. I learned a lot and have a better idea of what to expect when I do the other side. I ended up ordering a new shackle piece from a local dealership that hopefully will be here tomorrow. I am looking forward to getting this job done. Not just because it’s been a huge PIA, but because I do want my X back on the road. I’m tired of driving my ex-wife’s Camry.
