I hate starting new threads to ask a question but im getting desperate.

Ive been searching around for a couple hours now and all I could find was an old (from 2004) how-to on installing the spring on a xB. I plan on installing my springs on my own so a write up would help a lot since ive never done suspension work. If there is a write up that I dont know about please point me in the right direction.

And if not, is there anyone in south central Wisconsin with some experience willing to help me out.

If there isnt a how-to write up on this yet, when im done ill have one for sure with lots of pictures.

BTW: here is a link to the old xB write up that I found.
http://www.scionlife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=20769

http://www.club-tc.com/forums/suspension/75-front-spring-shock-install.html

for the rear just scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page. good luck.

That's the same how-to I used when I did my springs. Be sure to have plenty of time to do it. The install takes a while, especially if this is your first time doing it. Good luck.

This may help, too.

http://www.hotchkistuning.com/bin/instructions/19425.pdf

I know, not TRD, but give it a look.

Thank you guys so much. Those write ups are perfect. God I love Scion Life.

I was going to link you to the Hotchkis .pdf as well. I used both of those when I did mine last week.
However, just be aware that it depends on how tight your coils are.
Which springs are you installing?
I'm just saying this cause the springs compressor I rented from AutoZone worked fine with the fronts and fit on my TRD rears, but did not work fo the rear Hotchkis. I had to stick the assembly back in the controll arm and use my jack to put it in.
If you run into this problem, post up and we'll let you know what's up.

I had to stick the assembly back in the controll arm and use my jack to put it in.

I don't have my tC yet, but I have the hotchkis springs at the ready. Can you go into more detail about this step, or is it fairly simple?

i would def. think about professional installation unless u know waht ur doing..it is a pain in the rear end to do those springs....

lets just say me and a friend started at 6pm didnt end up till 2 am :D but hey its looks clean now !

here is my install
http://www.scionlife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=118266

hey im going to attempt to do mine when my struts come in. the only thing im worried about right now are the rear cuz they have to line up or they wont fit or something. what is that all about?

Just follow the Hotchkis instructions for the front.
For the rear, follow all the instructions for taking your trunk apart, but also take off the side panels in the trunk.
There is one black screw towards the top where the trunk cover meets.
You also have to remove the screw with the metal anchor tie down towards the back of the trunk.
There is also the grocery bag hooks on each side which need to be removed.
Start pulling some of the side panel off starting from the back. There are a few plastic snaps.
When you get to the hook, stick a straightened paper clip in the small hole as you pull on the panel. You should have to do it twice and it should pop off.
You should now be able to pull the panel all the way up to the quarter panel, which will make it much easier to reach that 3rd nut. You can also see thhe hole in the middle of the 3 nuts where the top of the strut is visible.

Now follow all the Hotchkis instructions until you get to the part where you compress the new springs on the strut.
Oh, you may also want to remove the bolt holding the brake line to the frame off the car. That should let your the controll bar drop down a little further. You'll need it to fit the whole uncompressed shock assembly in there.
Go ahead and put the spring and all the old parts on the strut and line everything up.
Now, you can put the bottom the the shock in the little pocket that it's supposed to sit in when it's on properly.
You should have just enough room to get everything in and line up the 3 bolts up top with the holes at the top of the wheel well.
Now, put your jack under the controll arm, which is what your shock assemply is sitting in.
Now, slowly start jacking everything up, while holding the shaft of the shock to try and align it into the whole in the top plate. You will have to push it towards the front center of the car. When you think you've got it, jack it up some and look at it through the hole from iniside the trunk to see if the shaft is going through the hole.
If you don't see it, drop it down and try it again. Your just compressing the shock.
Once you get it through, jack it all the way up until you can get the washer and nut on top of the screw.
I jacked mine up until I thought the springs was compressed enough so I could get the nut on as tight as I could. Don't jack to much or you'll lift it off your jack stands, which could possbible drop your car. Not a good idea with your rear suspension all taken apart!

Now, you can drop your jack, take the shock assembly back out, really tighten that nut, put the plastic cap back on, and put it back into the car.
You should now be able to put everything back together on that side.
I would recomend putting everything together under the car and dropping it off the jack stands before reassembling the interior of the trunk.
That way, you can make sure the top 3 nuts didn't loosen up after the wheels got back on the ground. Make sure their good and tight. Now put your interior back together.

I actually liked this method better then using the springs compressors cause it's alot quicker and easier to jack my hydrolic jack then it is to crank those spring compressors.
Also, you don't really have to worry about alighing the pieces with whiteout, tightening the nut, only to find out it's missaligned and have to redo it. Using the jack, youknow everythings lined up cause it's areadly in the car in the possition it needs to be in.

When I first put the car down, I had 4 finger gap!
That was higher then with the TRDs!
It settled to 2 fingers by the next day, and now it's almost fully settled to about a 1 finger gap.
Next weekend I'll get an allignment.
I hope this helped.

whoah. That was longer then i thought!
Wish I took some pics!

Wow, thank you Mr_Meaty. Awesome post. :clap:

I bought the H-Tech springs but dont have them yet so im not sure how tightly they are wound.

Ill be doing the install this weekend so if I have any big questions ill be on here trying to flag one of you guys down. Thanks again for all the help so far.

Nice. I like the H-tech drop too.
I ended up having to split my job between 2 weekends, but I have a pregnent wife and 2 kids that need my time as well! So I did my rears last weekend and the fronts the weekend before that. Next weekend I'll get an allignment.

i used that club-tc guide when i did my coilovers, worked fine for me.

Yo,

I was just wondering if anyone has heard that the stock shocks will get ruined fast with the TRD lowering springs. I cant afford both, but i can afford the lowering springs, but i dont wanna do it if its gonna blow out my stock shocks fast...anyone know about this???

TRD springs are the mildest drop and therefore will give your stock shocks much more life than any other set of aftermarket springs. You'll eventually have to replace them though, just not for at least a year or two. I've heard of some people going only 10k miles and having to replace them, and others have gotten over 20k-30k out of the stock shocks. It just depends.

Mr_Meaty, that was an awesome write up. I never want to have to fight with spring compressors again. If I do any more springs for friends, I may have to try this. Nice write-up.

Thanks for the compliment guys. I love ScionLife cause there is such a wealth of usefull information on it. I'm glad to do my part.

Brian: I had my TRDs in for 10,000 miles and had no extra wear on my shocks. I now have Hotchkis and so far so good.
You should be fine with the TRDs for quite some time. You probably only have to worry about really quick shock loss with a 2" drop, like the Tien S-Techs.

http://www.club-tc.com/forums/suspension/75-front-spring-shock-install.html

for the rear just scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page. good luck.

Nice write-up.

That message board would be great (I like the set-up alot better) if it had alot more members.

I was going to link you to the Hotchkis .pdf as well. I used both of those when I did mine last week.
However, just be aware that it depends on how tight your coils are.
Which springs are you installing?
I'm just saying this cause the springs compressor I rented from AutoZone worked fine with the fronts and fit on my TRD rears, but did not work fo the rear Hotchkis. I had to stick the assembly back in the controll arm and use my jack to put it in.
If you run into this problem, post up and we'll let you know what's up.

wish i would of read this first...i'm 1/2 way through the hotchkis (front) & couldnt get the rears on.... :doh:

the rears are easier with a jack then with the spring compressors.

the rears are easier with a jack then with the spring compressors.

yeah they were! there is no way you'd ever compress them with the tools @ autozone.

http://static.flickr.com/62/196668379_99d603b532.jpg
after reading the thread.....


all done.

my bad, heres the finished drop
http://static.flickr.com/76/196666008_21e3168611.jpg

Nice.
I meant to get an allignment this weekend but things came up and I never got around to it.
Plus it's been raining all week. Really weird for Vegas.

i haven't aligned yet either. there really isnt much pulling going on, i figure i'll give it a few more days just so she settles in

Has anyone done their own install with the H-techs. I just got mine in and I don't mind paying $200 for the install but I would rather do them on my own if it's not that hard. I read the directions for the Hotchkis and it doesn't seem to be too hard. I just wanted to know if anyone with the H-techs ran into any problems doing the install. Thanks.

Well, I havent' seen the H-Techs, but they shouldn't be much different. I would use the method I did with the jack for the backs because it was easier, even if your Tiens fit in the rented spring compressor.

I'll defenitely try your technique with the rears. I'm going to rent the spring compressor tonight and start the project. I know I won't finish it all tonight so I'll finish the rest tomorrow morning. I'll post up pics when I get it done. I'm hoping 6 hours the most.

Does anyone know the specs on how much torque I should use when putting all the bolts back on?

I found the answer to my own questions....

http://www.yoursciontc.com/information/torque_specs.html

that is very helpful

I don't know specifics on torque, but I tightened mine as tight as I could by hand, and a week later, the big top nut had come a little loose and it started clanking. I just cranked them all down one more time and I haven't had any trouble since. That was about eight months ago. Warning: the back springs are a biznatch to get to...

So I did some of the work on Friday night and than the rest of Saturday morning. The job would have been a lot easier with some real spring compressors. If you can get some real ones, not the kind that you have to crank about 200 times on each side, it will make the job a lot easier. I started with the back since it was the hardest part of the job. It all went pretty good until one of my socket wrench attachments broke. I had to rush to the store before they closed. I lost an hour there. The nuts on the bottom of the rear struts are tightened so that even superman can't take them off. I used the jack to push socket wrench up to loosen it. Maybe if my car was up on a real lift, than it might have been easier. I just used some jack stands.
I tried the shortcut technique on the rears, Mr. Meaty, but for some reason it didn't work for me. When I lowered the control arm to look at the strut and spring assembly, the bolt was still not sticking out of the top. I didn't bother removing the rear panels in the trunk because I didn't know how to get the grocery hooks off and didn't want to bother with them. I managed to pull the panel up and get to the screw that way. Sorry, I was being lazy.
Everything went back on fine and than we started on the front. The front was like 30 times easier than the back. The only pain in the ___ was taking the spring off the strut. When we tried to remove the nut on the top, the whole assembly was spinning so we couldn't get it to loosen. We had to un-compress the spring so that it would put pressure on the boot and the metal piece above that. So I recommend that you first loosen the nut free before you compress the spring. Don't loosen it to much, just break it free and than compress the spring. Other than that, the front was not bad.
Would I do it again....No unless I had an impact gun, hydraulic jack and some hydraulic spring compressor. :bow: I owe a lot of thanks to dexter_5000. :bow: He came by and helped me out on the project with his thousands of tools. You defenitely need more than one person for this project to go by faster.
Overall, I love how the car feels now. The wheel and spring combo make the car hug the road real well. The ride quality is a little stiffer than normal but not much. I have about a finger and a half gap right now and that was actually the day after I put them on that I saw that drop. I don't know how much more it will drop but it looks good.

What kind of srings did you guys use?? I am thinking of getting mine done soon. hopefully sooner then later!! hehe... And how much were the springs?

Thanks!

NYNativ.
Sorry about that, I forgot about the front. I ended up barely putting the compressor on, then had my buddy use vice grips to hold the top coil of the spring to the top plate. Along withalot of WD-40, we finally broke the nut free.

And with the rears, the reason you didn't see the shaft coming up was because you didn't get it in the whole, so it was being compressed. I had a problem with that too.
I had to jack it up very slowly while guiding the shaft ever so slighly into the hole :wink:
I didn't have a choice using the compressors on the back because how tightly wound the Hotchkis are. No matter, I'm glad you got it done in one weekend. I got kids so I had to spraed mine across two weekends.

This was probably the most time consuming mod I've done, but now I can say that I have done every single mod on my car. So yeah, it was frustrating, but I dont' think it is a job worth paying someone else $200 to do.

kdog_1981 : I bought the Tein H-Techs. $110 + shipping

Mr. Meaty :

After the first couple of hours working on the springs I was wondering why I didn't just pay someone $200 to do it but I'm glad I did it myself (with help). I get to know my car more. This is defenitely the most time consuming mod I have ever done.
I'm in the same boat as you with the kids. I just didn't have the option of working on it next weekend because we are taking a trip so I had to get it all done this weekend. The thing you have to remember is that once you start, there's no turning back.
One thing that you could do is to take the strut/spring assembly off, take it to a shop and have them put the new springs on the strut and than go back home and place the strut back on the car.

Yeah, I actually did the fronts one week, no problem except the shaft spinning. Still had my TRDs on the back, which actually looked pretty good. I think I read that someone is actually riding with Hotchkis up front and TRds in the back!

So the next weekend, I did the rear, and come saturday night, I almost did take it to a shop, but they said they could do it the next morning.
By then, I had found out about using the jack, and one of the reasons (and ways to convice my wife to let me get new springs even though I had some already!) was that I wanted to be able to say that I did ALL the work on my car myself.
We'll see what happens in a few years when I go turbo!
I got a friend that does motor swaps and turbos on Hondas so hopefully he'll be around to help!

Enjoy your springs and post some pics here and in the "Post Pics of your Lowered tC" (http://www.scionlife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=39485&highlight=) thread!

After two aleves, a backache and a gallon of water, I finished my Hotchkis springs today, by myself, with only handtools in 100 degree weather.

For anyone installing theirs by themselves, be sure to use alternative method when installing your rear springs. Do NOT try to use one of those sh*tty spring compressors. Don't spend hours trying to even mess with it.

with that being said, i'm off to autozone to return that stupid "spring compressor", 'cos i need my 40 dollars. :P

kdog_1981 : I bought the Tein H-Techs. $110 + shipping

Mr. Meaty :

After the first couple of hours working on the springs I was wondering why I didn't just pay someone $200 to do it but I'm glad I did it myself (with help). I get to know my car more. This is defenitely the most time consuming mod I have ever done.
I'm in the same boat as you with the kids. I just didn't have the option of working on it next weekend because we are taking a trip so I had to get it all done this weekend. The thing you have to remember is that once you start, there's no turning back.
One thing that you could do is to take the strut/spring assembly off, take it to a shop and have them put the new springs on the strut and than go back home and place the strut back on the car.

How much of a drop is it? any pics?

kdog, there's pictures of h techs all over the forums. Do a search for them and it will turn up a bunch of results. The h techs are a slightly less aggressive drop. They sit really even and look really good, but I'd recommend the goldline drop :P

i got my H-techs on last week, i'm pretty happy with them although i kind of wish the back were slightly lower than it is. although i don't know if it's fully settled yet or what.

here's a couple pics for kdog

http://www.scionlife.com/gallery/personal/34640_5.jpg

http://www.scionlife.com/gallery/personal/34640_3.jpg

Looks good. I'm going to try and get some pictures up. Man I'm jealous..tints all around. Up here in NH I can't get them on the driver or passenger side. Ahh...I miss NY.

Looks good. I'm going to try and get some pictures up. Man I'm jealous..tints all around. Up here in NH I can't get them on the driver or passenger side. Ahh...I miss NY.

The tint shops won't do it at all?

I didn't say that... :D . I just meant that I wish it was legal up here. When I moved up, I had tints all around on my Ac Legend ( I miss that car ) and I found a place that would pass my inspection with them on. I found a shop that will do my drivers and passenger side so that's my next stop. I like tints but I don't like them Limo black. Maybe in the back but not the front. I know I found a place in NY that would do my front windshield if I wanted. They do it really light but if you add that to the whole car being tinted, it gives it the effect of total darkness in the car.

tinting the front is to dangerous!! you are begging to get pulled over then...

So since I started this thread and never updated:

Yesterday I did the install by myself with one of those shi**y autozone spring compressors. But when you have your own impact wrench, air compressor, and a ton of other cool toys it all goes pretty smooth. I used the write up you guys gave me and it worked great.

I actually used the compressor on the rears and had no problem. I had to redo the driver rear once because it wasnt totally lined up but other than that everything went great. Still a little sore from the job but its worth it. Now ill let them settle in for a few days and then get an allignment. God im glad I didnt go with TRD springs...i would have been pretty unhappy.

Sweet!
Get some pics up!

Here are some pics I took this morning of the car.. let me know what you think...


http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid212/p1ee47d902434ccb6db61f6fee093536e/ed46687e.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid212/p1880e5fa1a3f7baa84f45256d711af94/ed4665e0.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid212/p35b6839a82b179a1e87cebb5ee3783f5/ed466307.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid212/p4427d8fbefaa395b40b481df5724af57/ed4661ce.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid212/pc95e02da8d189f7206aefb4d9e81cf26/ed466462.jpg

Looks good, but what happened to your breaks?
And what's that blue tint on the front rims?
What springs?

The brakes...I was an idiot and painted them. That doesn't last too long in NH. I have to get some "real" brakes.
The blue tint is the reflection of my garbage can. I didn't notice that until you pointed it out.

Ah, I see.
I thought you has some iridium coat on your rims!
My painted breaks are holding up just fine, btw.

I think that the stock calipers look too small with these rims.

Can soemone tell me the torque specson the rear upper control arm, rear sway bar, and bottom shock bolt in the rear? I have searched but no luck?

Nice pics! I love those rims.. but I can never find them.