Went through the process of fitting commodore shocks to the Vitara this evening so thought I'd take a few photos and document it as I go. Its not particularly difficult and you can get the job done with just a few hand tools and a couple of hours of your time. There seems to be quite a few options on what commodore shocks to use, as Supercheap has Gabriel ones for 25% off at the moment I went in there with a tape measure till I found ones I liked.
I walked away with 2 x Gabriel Ultra rear shock absorbers for a VK/VL station wagon, part # 69609. They are usually $56 each, at the moment you can pick up the pair of them for $85. Make sure you get the wagon ones, as the sedan ones are substantially longer (measured something like ~640mm open) and wont be suitable.
Tools I used:
- 14mm, 17mm & 19mm spanners
- 17mm & 19mm sockets and breaker bar
- Rubber mallet
- Supercheap bench press (big fckn hammer would probably suffice)
- Trolley jack, axle stand & a few bits of wood as spacers
- Grease
And on to the pics. Firstly, go to supercheap and come back with two of these boxes.
Start by grabbing your 19mm socket on your breaker bar and crack the wheel nuts on whatever side you are going to be doing first.
Grab your trolley jack and axle stand, and get them in position under the chassis rail towards the rear of the car. I jack about a foot in front of the rear wheel, which gives plenty of room to position your axle stand behind it still.
Please make sure you use an axle stand rather than having the car on the trolley jack the entire time. Safety first people!
Once you've got the stand in position lower the car onto it. Obviously you want to make sure the car is high enough that the wheel is off the ground, hence why I'm using a few bricks as the axle stands arent high enough on their own.
Quick photo shocking how loose the spring is at the moment at full droop. Its only just started to come loose. That is a standard vitara spring, with a 50mm coil spacer and a 2" extended ride pro shock.
Get your tools all ready so you don't have to keep getting up to go get them.
My RidePro shocks are secured to the shock tower using a 17mm main nut, and a 14mm lock nut. Hence the first thing to come off is the lock nut. Grab the 14mm spanner, hold the shock body with one hand to prevent it turning, and give the spanner a whack with the mallet with your other hand.
Once the lock nut is off, grab your 17mm spanner and loosen the other nut off a few turns also. Leave it attached for the time being.
Now turn your attention to the bolt holding the bottom of the shock on. I've got shock re-locators fitted which you probably won't have, but all you need to do is remove the bottom bolt anyway. Grab your 19mm spanner, hold the other side of the bolt with your sprocket & breaker bar, and loosen it off.
Tap the bolt out once your done. Note that the weight of the diff is currently resting on that bolt. Once you remove it its going to drop down a few inches. It would be wise to re-position your trolley jack under your rear axle before you do this so you can lower it gently.
Quick photo showing how much further the axle has dropped with no shock holding it up anymore. The brake line is actually preventing it dropping any further in this picture as I haven't got the jack under the axle at this stage.
Be nice to your brake lines people and jack the axle up a bit so its not pulling on your lines. I had changed the bracket holding the rear brake line previously. If you still have it mounted in the stock position it will most definitely be stretching the absolute shit out of it at this point unless you take the weight of the axle off it.
You can hear the brake lines sighing with relief
Now the shock is on the floor, just a quick photo showing me removing the shock relocator brackets so I can re-fit them to the new shocks I am fitting.
Out came the tape measure just to double check the sizes of the bushes/sleeves in the old & new shocks. The bottom bush in the new Gabriel shock has an ID of 16mm.
And as it turns out, the metal sleeve fitted to the bottom bush on the original Vitara shocks (not the Ridepro ones I removed from the car) has an OD of 16mm. Perfect!
This is the sleeve we need to remove from the original vitara shocks. As it turns out, it isn't quite as easy as you might expect.
A couple of quick photos showing the 3 different shock absorbers. Bottom is a standard Vitara rear shock. Middle is the Ridepro shock. Top is the new Gabriel commodore shock.
The new commodore shock is pretty much bang on an inch longer than the ridepro one it is replacing.
With the measuring out of the way its time to get back to work. Grab your dirty old vitara shock and head to your shop press.
$89 of Supercheap's finest. The jack is shit quality but the frame itself is pretty sturdy. It is perfectly adequate for small jobs like this anyway. If you don't have one of these you will need to resort to the sockets/bolts method or a big hammer.
Lay the shock down in the press and get to work. All we are trying to do is press the rubber bush out of the shock body.
Getting there....
Great success! Now we need to get the metal sleeve out of that rubber bush. Unfortunately suzuki appear to have perfected the art of bonding rubber to metal, so it is really quite a friggin difficult task.
After dicking around with trying to press it out this afternoon, I've since learnt the only easy way to do it is to just cut the bastard off. Go to the kitchen and get your partners best/sharpest knife and get to work.
Fast forward 10 minutes and you should have it looking something like this. Try not to cut your hand off when doing this okay.
Now you've taken the first wedge out of it, just continue to go round cutting each segment off as you go.
You beauty! Almost there. Chances are your gigantic kitchen knife you were using left a bit too much rubber on the sleeve still, so we just need to neaten it up a little more.
So grab a stanley knife or similar and shave the rest of it down. The potential to do yourself damage is even greater in this step than the last so try to be careful
And job done.
Take your newly free'd metal sleeve and your shiny new shock and go back inside to your press of big hammer. I've pressed it in as far as it will go by hand in this photo.
Whack it under the press and finish the job
Perfect. Like a bought one!
Take your new shock and head back to the mess you've made in the garage again...
While everything is out of the way, I took the opportunity to secure the rubber shock seat to the top of the spring. Thankfully the coil spacers are wedged hard in to the shock towers so I don't need to do anything with them.
A few cable ties later and its looking much better.
Time to put it back together again. Stick the pin of the shock through the shock tower and add on the other rubber grommet & washer.
Do the nut up a few turns for the time being just to hold it there while you work on the bottom bolts
Grab some grease and give the bottom shock bolt a slight smearing. This one is for my shock brackets...
Re-fitting my shock re-locator brackets.
And its time to put the bottom shock bolt back in. Chances are the holes aren't lined up at the moment as per this pic.
So jack the diff up/down whatever is needed till you've got it perfect.
Much better.
Add a smear of grease to your bolt and tap it home.
Put on the washer and tighten the nut back up again.
Almost there now. Now you can go back and tighten up the top shock mount again. You can see in this photo how much extra droop I am getting with the new shocks.
Now would be a good time to make sure your brake lines aren't going to be stretched. Lower the jack again to drop the axle back down if you havent done so already and check the tension on the brake lines. If it is tight you will need to modify the way the lines routes or get longer lines.
Chances are your axle will now be too low when you go to re-fit the wheel, so throw the jack back under the axle and lift it up slightly.
Re-fit the wheel, and do up the wheel nuts hand tight.
Give the wheel nuts a quick tension now before we lower the car again.
And that is one side done. Sit back for a moment and bask in the glory of your awesomeness. Follow the exact same process for the other side. Then clean up your garage. Then tension your wheel nuts properly. Then go wheel the shit out of it and enjoy the acres of new flex you now possess.
And that's it. Like I mentioned at the start, its not a really difficult task at all and I reckon just about anyone would be capable of having a crack at it themselves. Hope it helps someone out there anyway.
cheers
EDIT: I should probably mention you will most definitely need to extend your bump stops if you havent done so already otherwise you will kill your shocks on the first outing. You can see in the pics above I am using the 1.5" bump stop extenders from bits4vits. While its not the cheapest solution, it is definitely one of the easiest.
