2011 Z71 + Fabtech 6" lift + Bilstein install

Ok, so I've got most of the stuff I need and will hopefully be doing the install on this thing within the next 6 weeks or so.  I'm doing it myself since the shops around here want close to $1k to do it.

The Goods I have:
2011 Avalanche Z71 w/ 50k miles, no previous suspension mods.
Fabtech K1019 Basic Lift kit w/o Autoride
Bilstein 5100 Leveling Struts (24-186940) and shocks (24-187237)
Falken Wild Peak A/T 35x12.5x18 tires w/ 50% tread (Hey, it was a deal)
1.5" spacers for the rear wheels.
ProComp Series 5034 Rockwell, Satin Black, 18x9 wheels w/ 5" BS.
Fabtech 1" Coil Spring Spacers (FTS21064)

The Goods I need:
Nothing That I know of now.

Struts:
If anyone has been following my ranting of late, the 7-9" Adjustable Bilstein 5100's from Cognito are extinct.
So, I made the choice to instead get the leveling shocks and install them in the Fabtech Strut extensions to get the same effect.  The concerns I had were whether the extensions would fit the shock body and whether the extensions spacer bushings would fit the strut mounts after pressing the crossbars out.  Turns out the bushings fit fine and the extensions look like they fit ok too, but I need to get a torque wrench to confirm and make sure I don't crush the strut body with them.  As it happens, the Fabtech rep I talked to said they've been getting calls asking about this setup, so it looks like I might be the test pilot or space monkey.



Coil Spacers:
Apparently some installations end up with the rear end squatting a bit, but Fabtech can't confirm which vehicles this happens on.  I think I'm just going to go ahead and get the spacers and if the rear sits up too high, I'll compensate with the struts.

Any critiques of my choices here are welcome.  Usually, I've found that the best way to get help on forums isn't to actually ask, but to say what you want to do (or did) and wait for people to tell you how you're wrong.  

Next Update

Nice, can't wait to see it...

Good luck, may your install be less of a hassle than your quest in locating parts and information...

Torque wrenches arrived and I torqued the strut extension bolts.  I had to tighten them until the clamps were touching on either side of the strut. Took more torque than I thought.  I guess my arm is out of calibration.  I didn't crush the tubes and the struts pass a compression test, so I don't thing they're binding.  I think they'll work alright.

Wheels and coil spacers are on their way.  UPS claims delivery tomorrow!

Next update

I'll watch this 

Wheels acquired!



Trying to decide whether I should take them to the tire shop now or after I get the lift installed.  The trick is that I need my TPMS sensors moved from the stock wheels to the new ones. I'd prefer to have the tires ready and install them myself even if I have to drive around for a bit with TPMS errors on the DIC.

They'll probably charge me to mount and balance 8 tires since I didn't buy anything else from them.

The wheels have a warning that I need to check fitment of the wheel to the truck before mounting the tire to the wheel because if I mount it, I own it and can't send it back.  I'd kinda hate to get everything ready only to find the wheels don't fit and be stuck with having to sell effectively used wheels I've never driven on.

I guess the safe bet is to get another pair of jack stands.  Install lift, check wheels, then take all 8 to the tire shop.

(Link to actual install post.  Finally.)

Lift install starts Saturday morning!

Can't wait to see the end result!!!

It would be nice if I could actually post anything but the site is still all wonky for me.

Very nice. I hope your kit is easier than mine and you have all the right equipment/tools to do it. Mine was a RC 7.5" and it was nothing i'd want to do at home or myself again.

Those strut extensions looks really nice too.

Alright!  It appears the site is running much better.

My plan here for the weekend was to do the rear myself on Saturday and have my brother come by and help with the front on Sunday, fit the wheels to make sure they were clearanced right and get the mount, balance done Monday, with alignment on Tuesday.  So it goes with mice and men.

The before:



I put the rig up on four 3-ton jack stands.  Pro-tip: Make sure your jack and jack stands are tall enough to lift the vehicle to it's final height.  Mine weren't.  More on that later.

I started on the rear end and got all that done in a day by myself.  Nothing to spectacular to report there.  However, the Fabtech instructions kinda suck.  First of all, they say to leave a lot of linkages loose.  This makes sense while assembling, but the instructions never mentioned the part about tightening them and give no torque specs.  Calling Fabtech, they said to torque them to factory.  Ok.  What's factory?  They don't know.  Apparently the only place to get that is a service manual.  Not wanting to pay $200 for a few numbers I had to search around the net for a while.  I would have come here, but getting on the board has been really difficult for me because of the server migration.  The instructions also did not mention the grease zerks included with the parts.  I figured out what to do but didn't install them until the end and unfortunately, two of them are located poorly and I will have to jack up the wheels one at a time or pull the lower control arms to reach them.

I hedged my bets and installed the rear coil spacers figuring if the rear was too high, I would just adjust the front end up to match.

Rear end installed!:



Sunday: On to the front.

We had to pretty much entirely disassemble the front end.  Brakes, hubs, knuckles, struts, drive axles, lower control arms, rear differential crossmember, differential, torsion bar, all of it had to come out.  I kept all parts removed on their respective side of the vehicle and all hardware was put into the part loosely so I wouldn't lose it or forget what goes where.

Basically this:



I had some fun with the differential mounts.  Put the impact on the passenger side mount nut and within a split second, it looked like this:



Mystified, we broke for lunch while I found out the parts department at the dealership is closed on Sundays.  A quick trip to Home depot for a Class 8.8 metric bolt and nut gets me this fix, which I hope is good enough:



Reassembling the rest of the front end took all day and into the night.  This took a lot longer than I had anticipated.  We got to the struts and ran into a snag.  I couldn't get the nut to screw down without spinning the strut shaft.  Since I could continue those myself and my brother had to go home at some point we hammered away at everything that could be done without having the struts.  Drive axles, torsion bar, etc.  We started on the impact bars, but he had to go, and it got dark outside, so that was that.

Struts.  Oh God, struts.  Since I could do them in the garage with light, I set to work.  It would appear that a special tool is required for these.  Something that holds the shaft while I turn the nut.  Didn't have that.  Googling found that most just impact them on.  Nope.  Wouldn't go.  The nut would go about half way down, then spin the shaft.  New plan: Take struts to Schwabs and have the "experts" do it in the morning.  It was already apparent that I would have to blow a vacation day on this, so why not.

Monday morning, I run the struts to Schwabs.  Turns out they refuse to work on anything unless you buy the parts from them.  Cute.  Took them to Meineke who said no problem and I would have them done by the afternoon.  I worked on getting the rest of the front end put together as much as I could.  They called and said they had a problem.

Big problem:



Luckily for me, the Amazon seller sent this pic to Bilstein and they said it was a defective shaft and not because the shop (and everyone else) just jams the nuts on with an impact.  So, I ordered a new strut and the special tools to do it right and waited.  In the meantime, I decided to change my strategy a bit to speed things up.  I slapped one side of the front together without strut to check wheel clearance.  It was good so off to the tire shop for mount and balance.  

Is this too many weights?



The rest of the new plan was to use the factory struts to temporarily check ride height of the front end.  So I took them to my buddy with a press and repeated that scene.  

Fast forward a whole week because I got work and other plans I couldn't break.  Isn't it nice to still have the old rig (that Tahoe in the top pic) to get around in.  My girlfriend's brother was visiting and I conned him in to helping me.  We got the factory struts assembled with extensions, and the whole front end put together in an afternoon and set the thing down on wheels for the first time.  Remember that part about the jackstands?  Yeah.  Had to jack each end quite a bit higher with a bigger jcak and wood blocks to get it high enough to install the tires.  Still, it worked.

As it turns out, I NEEDED the spacers as the level was perfect with rear spacers and front at factory height.  Next it was tear apart the front end again and pull the struts while I went to get the crossbar pressed out of the new strut.  Then we assembled the new struts using the correct tools and no impact, extensions installed and everything put back together with proper torque.  Again the instructions don't say any of this.

Set back down, I checked for rubbing.  Yep.  Had to trim off part of the trim pieces on either side of the bottom of the bumper.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a pic of the rig until alignment the next morning.

So here it is:



In conclusion:  Next time, I'm paying someone to do this.  $1k in labor including alignment is CHEAP compared to the tools I had to buy, timeline, and sheer frustration of doing it myself.

As for the lift, ,this thing is AWESOME.  Suspension feels and rides great. I'm glad I got the Bilsteins if anything it means I won't have to screw with the shocks for a long time.  I still have a bit of rubbing in reverse, and this odd random vibration that I can't figure out.  Seems to happen at 25-35 mph on generally level surfaces.  It can't be rubbing I don't think, but I got no ideas at all.  I need to go back and recheck torques and trim a bit more of the plastic trim in front of the nerf bars and more on the front edge of the wheel wells.

Any questions?

Looks great... And great job and I know what you mean about the next time paying someone else to install it.. It's not that it's that difficult of a job when you have all the right tools and a lift it's a lot easier, but when your doing it in the driveway it gets a lot tougher..

I had a shop install mine and there were a few post install issues with vibration in the front end so they rotated the tires and it moved to the rear. They re-balanced the tires 3 times and I said send them back and get new ones, they finally agreed and the new ones had zero vibration.. The two that were on the front were out of round, they would balance fine but put on the road and they would vibrate.. So a warranty helps with a issues after the install when a shop does it..

Randy said:

Looks great... And great job and I know what you mean about the next time paying someone else to install it.. It's not that it's that difficult of a job when you have all the right tools and a lift it's a lot easier, but when your doing it in the driveway it gets a lot tougher..

I had a shop install mine and there were a few post install issues with vibration in the front end so they rotated the tires and it moved to the rear. They re-balanced the tires 3 times and I said send them back and get new ones, they finally agreed and the new ones had zero vibration.. The two that were on the front were out of round, they would balance fine but put on the road and they would vibrate.. So a warranty helps with a issues after the install when a shop does it..

Click to expand...

I'm getting this intermittent vibration that seems to happen at 1000-1500 RPM.  The driver's side exhaust pipe is very close (<1/8") to the impact bar that goes from the lift crossmember to the transmission crossmember.  Might be resonating and touching.  I think I may need to get the pipe bent a bit to clear.  Heat has probably burned the paint off too. 

How many OZ of weight. One of my interco took 15.3 oz to balance out

SRFNSNO said:

How many OZ of weight. One of my interco took 15.3 oz to balance out

Click to expand...

Not sure.  I'll have to count.  I don't think it's that much.  The picture I posted is pretty typical of them, though.

Interesting thing I just did: I measured the drop of the control arms.  8 inches between the factory mounts and the drop mounts.  This would explain why I'm 10" higher at the front wheel wells with tires installed. 

The Fabtech kit is actually 8" front, 6" rear (with 1" rear coil spacers).

Did you ever find out what the vibration was. I did similar lift on my 1500 Z71 . I have Fabtech 6" and also used Bilstein 5100's up front with strut extensions. I have my struts set at the 1.13" mark which is second notch from top.(not maxed).

I've been searching the web and found your post and joined group specifically to ask what the outcome was. My truck makes the noise at different speeds but does it more if I so to speak lug around and find the sweet spot it will just keep making that noise. Mostly feels and sounds like its under my feet I can feel it just slightly but hear it more than anything. I had my exhaust moved about a 1/8" from impact strut but I guess its possible it could still be hitting. My truck will not make the noise if in park unless I power brake it in drive and gradually ease on gas kind of like it needs to be under load to make noise. I have also heard it at higher speeds but it's around a lower rpm like 900-1500rpm . Does this sound the same ?

Timber2015 said:

Did you ever find out what the vibration was. I did similar lift on my 1500 Z71 . I have Fabtech 6" and also used Bilstein 5100's up front with strut extensions. I have my struts set at the 1.13" mark which is second notch from top.(not maxed).

I've been searching the web and found your post and joined group specifically to ask what the outcome was. My truck makes the noise at different speeds but does it more if I so to speak lug around and find the sweet spot it will just keep making that noise. Mostly feels and sounds like its under my feet I can feel it just slightly but hear it more than anything. I had my exhaust moved about a 1/8" from impact strut but I guess its possible it could still be hitting. My truck will not make the noise if in park unless I power brake it in drive and gradually ease on gas kind of like it needs to be under load to make noise. I have also heard it at higher speeds but it's around a lower rpm like 900-1500rpm . Does this sound the same ?

Click to expand...

Pretty sure it's the exhaust pipe vibrating against the driver's side impact bar.  I think I need an exhaust shop to "adjust" the routing of the pipe.