Chevrolet GMC Front 8 Piece Steering & Suspension Kit TRQ PSA85352

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Hi, I'm Mike from 1A Auto. I hope this how-to video helps you out, and next time you need parts for your vehicle, think of 1AAuto.com. Thanks.

In this video, I'm going to show you how to replace the front shocks and spring assemblies on this 2011 Chevy Silverado. This is a 1500 with full-wheel drive. It's the same as any Chevy Silverado 1500 as well as the GMC Sierra 1500. We'll show you the passenger's side, but the driver's side is the same procedure. We do always recommend you replace these in pairs. You'll need new struts from 1AAuto.com, you'll need 15mm to 22mm sockets with a ratchet, a long extension, breaker bar or pipe for some extra leverage, penetrating oil, torque wrench, and jack and jack stands.

From the top there are three 18mm nuts that hold the top of the strut in place. You can see one there, one has a wire loom on it there that I'm going to reach down, grab, and just pull off. I apologize for the camera shot. You just grab the wire clip and pull it up off the stud. You have the other one there and your third one there.

Now use an 18mm socket with a long extension and remove those three nuts. Remove the center cab just by prying with a screwdriver, and if you don't have the benefit of air tools, loosen the lug nuts with the vehicle on the ground, then raise and secure the vehicle. Then remove the lug nuts the rest of the way. Remove the wheel and tire, and they are 22mm lug nuts.

Turn the wheel using hands or using the steering wheel, and then you need to remove the stabilizer link. Make sure you put some penetrating oil on the top end of it there, then use a wrench on the top side and a socket and ratchet on the bottom side to remove it all the way. Going to speed it up a little bit using an impact wrench to take that off. It just speeds things up for us.

Now with the shock or strut in place, we're just using a 15mm socket and ratchet. You might want to use a breaker bar to break them loose, but they come apart pretty easy on this truck. We'll fast-forward as we just take those out. With those bolts out, press down on the suspension some and bring the strut down and then up and out.

You can see the new struts from 1A Auto are exactly the same. There are two clips on the old strut that you want to pry off with a screwdriver, and then it's easiest to reinstall those just when you put the strut back into the vehicle. Put them on there, put the bolt up through, and you'll see us to do that. Putting the strut back in, if you look on the top of the strut where the coil spring ends that goes to the outside, and you put the strut back in and then lift it up into place.

Then you can just start the nuts onto the top. Put the bottom down in place, take your bolt, run it up through, and then those clips that you took off of the original strut, put them into place, and we just kind of hold them with our fingers, get the bolt started, and then you can press them down into place and tighten up the bolts the rest of the way.

You can see here we use a screwdriver to put through the clip to hold it in place until it gets down far enough that it holds itself in place. Repeat it for the other side as well. You can tighten these up between 70 and 75 foot-pounds. Speed up as we put the stabilizer link back in place. Use a pry bar to lift up on the swag bar a little bit, put the link back in place, put the bolt up through, and then tighten the nut down on top.

Then put our wheel back on, put the lug nuts back on by hand first, then tighten them up preliminarily. With the vehicle back down on the ground and secure, torque the lug nuts to 110 foot-pounds using a crossing pattern. Tighten up and torque the top three nuts to *38* foot-pounds, and put that wire clip back in place. You should be all set.

We hope this video helps you out. Brought to you by www.1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the Internet. Please feel free to call us toll-free, 888-844-3393. We're the company that's here for you on the Internet and in person.

Hi, I'm Mike at 1A Auto, we've been selling auto parts for over 30 years.

What's up guys, I'm Andy from 1A Auto. Today I'm gonna show you how to replace the front struts in this 2008 Chevy Silverado. If you need these parts or other parts for your vehicle, click the link in the description and head over to 1AAuto.com.

I'm going to take a 22mm socket, I'm just going to take this center cap off. Loosen up these plastic covers, if you have to use a ratchet you can use a ratchet. Pull that off, take my same 22mm socket and a breaker bar, now loosen up these lug nuts.

Now we're going to raise and support the vehicle. We're using a two post lift, if you're doing this at your house you can use a jack and jack stands. I'll remove these lug nuts, you know, take the last lug nut off, take the wheel off.

We're gonna take some rust penetrant, we're just gonna spray it on this sway bar link. We're also going to spray some on our lower shock bolts, right there and right there.

We're gonna take a 15mm wrench, slide it over the nut, and I'm gonna use a 15mm socket and a ratchet a little lower and loosen this up. This is on there pretty tight, so now I'm gonna use a ratchet wrench once it's cracked free, and be a little bit quicker. Loosen up this nut, take that nut off.

Rubber bushing right here, I'm just gonna take it off with a trim tool. Just try to pry underneath here, try that out, slide that off. Let's pray some more rust penetrant, and then let that soak for a little bit.

I'm just gonna take some locking pliers, just lock this right here, try to turn with the 15mm socket and match it, try to turn the bolt. Pretty rusty, it's right now it's frozen in the middle, they're turning very well, trying to turn it back and forth.

So because this sway bar link is frozen against, it's frozen to the bolt that's going through it, because of the rust and everything, it's pretty rusty here. I had to disconnect the other sway bar link from the other side so I can actually move this sway bar.

I'll just take a pry bar, just get underneath here, pry up, just to get that off. Then I can take a trim tool and start by taking this rubber grommet off, slide up underneath here. I got off, and this plastic piece is pretty stuck in there, so I'm actually going to cut it off.

I'm actually going to use an air-powered cutoff wheel, we're gonna slice down the side of this, this link right here. It is plastic, so should cut pretty easily.

And just sliced it down the center, and I can take a trim tool or a straight bladed screwdriver, just try to pry this apart a little bit. Normally, normally you wouldn't have to do this if this wasn't so rusted. This rod, the bolt should slide right down. This one's pretty bad. I'm just gonna take a smaller pry bar and a hammer, you can use a chisel, just try to bang this up a little bit. It's okay if I break it more because we're not reusing it.

Let's start the move. Slide that off, take this other rubber grommet off, slide the bolt up. And it takes some rust penetrant, I'm just gonna spray them on these two bolts coming through for the bottom of the strut. Then I'm gonna take a 15mm socket and a ratchet, I'm going to take these two bottom bolts out. Pull those bolts out, because we separated this link, this makes this lower control arm pretty loose, it's gonna make it easier to take this strut out. You don't have to take that link off, it just makes it a little, a lot easier.

Alright, next I'm just gonna use a trim tool, there's a little wire harness right here, it's on one of the studs for the strut, so just get underneath there. This is, most of this is easiest to get from under the hood rather than trying to entangle your hands in between the wheel housing. Pull that off, get that out of your way.

We're gonna take a 18mm socket, we're gonna use a ratchet. I'm gonna take these nuts off, place three of them, one here, one over here, and then one over here. There's some, these up, take these off. One thing you want to keep in mind, do not take the nut off in the center, that's for the strut itself. Take that last nut off, right, and I'm just gonna push down on this whole front-end assembly, push the bottom part down, and then grab the spring, pull it straight up.

Has our old spring and strut assembly, here's our new spring and strut assembly from 1AAuto.com. As you can see, the upper strut mount is the same, the new one actually comes with new nuts. The spring is the same, it's got a boot, it's got a bumper inside the boot. The base is the same, it's the same height, comes with new bolts and nuts for the bottom. Get yours at 1AAuto.com and you'll be ready to rock and roll.

Before we install our strut assembly, we're going to take these nuts off, set them aside.

And when we go to install this, we want to make sure that the top of the strut assembly is like this, in this formation. These two studs are towards the back, this one's coming forward, and you can see that the strut is in this formation in the front. If you look at this from the side a little bit, this is angled, and you want this angled in this direction, not this direction. It's going against the lower control arm.

So take this, slide this in. You're gonna go through the hole in the lower control arm. We're gonna go up, this holes up, then we're gonna push down on the suspension, then just get that to rest right there. Then we can go up top and put our nuts on from up top.

Now we're going to install these nuts. Now the new nuts happen to be 15mm, so I'm going to use a 15mm socket and a ratchet. Tighten these down with a ratchet first before I torque them.

Now we're going to use a torque wrench and the 15mm socket. We're going to torque these nuts to 37 foot-pounds. That's good. It'll take this wire, put that fastener and reposition that on that stud.

We're gonna install these bolts down below. I don't want to pull this control arm down a little bit, slide this strut over. Use a pry bar, just get it into position. You could also do this before you tighten up the nuts on top, make it a little bit easier.

Line this one up, that's through. Take the nut, put them out on top. The same with the other side. You can give it a little tap with a hammer if you have to bend that on top.

I'll take a 15mm wrench on top on the nut, and then a 13mm socket and ratchet for the bolt on the bottom. We'll tighten these up.

I'm gonna put a 15mm socket on the nut, and I'll use a 13mm wrench on the lower bolt, and these a torque wrench, and torque these to 37 foot-pounds.

You install this sway bar link, just take this apart. I'm going to take the nut off, take this pushing off, I'm going to slide this apart. This center piece should stay together like that. Line this up with the hole right there, line the stud all the way through the center, slide the bar down, pull that into position.

I help with installing this, I'm just gonna use a pry bar, just go underneath the frame, slide it down. It'll take this upper grommet, push that on. So with the pry bar prying down, get the nut started. Once that started we can remove the pry bar.

I'm gonna use a 15mm wrench, just put it on that not up top, then a 15mm socket and a ratchet on the bottom. Depending on the sway bar link itself, your sizes might be different. Tighten this down.

All right, then we're going to torque this. We can just, I'm going to switch from these, the wrench in the bottom, torque the nut. We're going to torque the nut to 17 foot-pounds.

Grab the tire, line it up, install the lug nuts. Now we're gonna lower the vehicle down to the ground, just so the tires just touching the ground.

Now I'm going to use a 22mm socket and a torque wrench. I'm going to torque these lug nuts to a hundred and forty foot-pounds. I'm going to do it in a cross pattern so that it tightens the wheel down evenly. Now I'm going to recheck it.

I'll install the center cap, and I'll use my socket and just tighten these little caps down, not too tight, they are plastic.

Thanks for watching. Visit us at 1AAuto.com for quality auto parts, fast and free shipping, and the best customer service in the industry.

Hi, I'm Mike from 1A Auto. We've been selling auto parts for over 30 years.

Remove the center cap with a large flat-bladed screwdriver or a plastic prying tool you can get from 1AAuto.com. Push in here and pop it off. Use a 22 millimeter socket and breaker bar to loosen the lug nuts while the vehicle is still on the ground. Raise and support the vehicle and finish removing the wheel.

Support the suspension arm assembly with a jack or a jack stand. We're using this because we're working on a two post lift. The suspension is going to want to drop when we remove the strut and spring assembly, so that's why we need to have it supported. At the top here, there are three studs with nuts. We will start by removing those. And then, loosen the two stud and nuts on the bottom and pull the strut assembly out.

I will spray some rust penetrant on the nuts and bolts here. Use a 15 millimeter wrench on the top ones. If they are stuck, use a dead blow, break them free. With those broken free, I'm going to switch to a ratcheting wrench, make things go a little quicker. These two lower mounting bolts go through the control arm. There is a 15 millimeter head on this side, and an 18 millimeter nut on this side. I'm going to try to break this nut free first. Take my wrench and then hit it with my mallet.

So it looks like it's actually turning the nut, and not the bolt, which is good. Free it up. I'm going to try to do the same for the other side. With the nut loose, I'm going to kind of hold it with my 18 millimeter, and take a 15 millimeter socket and ratchet. Now I've got it loose, I can undo it with my fingers. Slide the long bolt out. I'll put these together and put them aside. So repeat the removal for the other bolt. I'm going to hold the shock and I'll lower the suspension down. I'm going to capture one of the top nuts just so if the strut and shock combination comes loose, it doesn't fall completely out. I'm going to take a pry bar and sort of push against the bottom. Reach up, hold the strut up, and undo that top nut. Pull it out of the mount. It's not going to come down this way, so it's going have to come out through the top. We have our strut and spring assembly.


Here's our old strut and spring assembly from our vehicle, and our brand new assembled strut and spring from 1AAuto.com. So the nice things is you don't have to worry about swapping these springs, which can be very difficult. It comes fully loaded, ready to go. As you can see, it's got the same mounting bolt holes in the bottom. It has the same three studs on the top to mount. It has the same three mounting studs on the top as the original that came out. And this should go in your vehicle great and give you a good ride. This is just a warning sticker. You can remove this before you install it. You don't need to mess with this center nut. It's all set.

The spring is assembled. The warning's telling you not to undo it. Just leave it alone. You can take the sticker off. So we're going to go ahead and install this in the vehicle now. Before we install it, just remove these nuts that it comes with. Place them aside. I'm going to loosen this one and hold onto it, because when I install it, I'm going to use it to just hang the strut in place so it doesn't fall. So just keep that in a handy spot. When you install this, there are two mounting holes in the back. They are slotted, so they give you a little bit of room to work with.

I'm going to line the strut up with the two studs in the back and the one in the front, faced the way that it's already set up. And these are lined up to match up with the control arm. We're going to go in the reverse the way we took the old one out. Slide it up into place. That's why I kept the nut handy. I can reach up and capture one so it doesn't fall on me. I'm going to use that one nut I installed and a ratcheting wrench to just draw the strut up into place. I'm going to pry up on the suspension a bit, on the strut, do this. I have a large pry bar on one side of the suspension arm, so I basically just pried the control arm down, and then pried the shock into place. Take a punch and align the bolt holes.

You're going to have to spend some time moving the shock around to get these bolts to line up, either using an awl or a punch or a little pry bar to try and pry it around. This one doesn't quite line up. I've got the other one captured, so we'll take a pry bar and sort of pry the strut around. Try to wiggle it in. There it is. I captured the other two nuts on the top studs. These are locking nuts. And if they're torqued, they'll be locked in place. The bolts that we're replacing these with, the head is a 13 millimeter, the nut is still a 15. I'm just going to snug these up. And we'll use a 15 millimeter ratcheting wrench. Tighten up the top nuts. I torqued these lower bolts to 37 foot-pounds. Caught a hold of the top of the bolt and nut. Repeat the other one. Torque the top nuts to 37 foot-pounds using the deep socket and torque wrench.

Place the wheel back on the car. Thread the lug nuts on by hand. With the vehicle on the ground, I'm going to torque the lug nuts. Torquing these 140 foot-pounds. Going in a cross pattern. Reinstall the center cap. Line up this valve stem picture with the valve stem on the wheel. Just pushing it into place.

Thanks for watching. Visit us at 1AAuto.com for quality auto parts, fast and free shipping, and the best customer service in the industry.