Suspension and wheel bearings

The top plates don't get thicker. What's going to happen is there should be a spacer that you've ordered 1.6 in isn't that 40 mm or somewhere thereabouts I just put this on the same car about 3 weeks ago a couple of points you're going to need to be careful of on your new struts You're going to need to knock out the long studs that hold the top plates to your car The new ones are going to be 40 mm or so longer really long on the new struts it may be very difficult to knock out that splined stud which is about 3 in long or so You may have to cut that with your angle grinder and then run your angle grinder across the strut top plate metal so you can see the star and then take a punch and whack those out The new longer spline the studs splines will not be the same so you need to rotate the splines get it close and then smack it with a hammer and seat it x6 of them . And that's about it other than that everything went pretty spiffy when you go to put your suspension and swing everything back up you're going to notice some differences in angles You may have to put some weight or a pry bar to lift up to get everything spiffy The two bolts in the hub assembly usually when I'm doing this I'm changing out the hub bearing and the lower ball joint all at the same time so I don't have this apart again generally in my time with the car You're system may be different.

 

I don't run the 16s I never have 17s sometimes and mostly the reliable 15s on the Prius wheels on my lifted nonsense I'll be able to go to about a 26-in overall diameter tire and wheel package for me this will be somewhere around 2:15.60 15 65s might make it on the rear I'm not sure of that that puts you at about 26.4 in or something along those lines 26 with the tape measure looks pretty close usually when I measure like that I get a little more space than I bargained for but at least I'm not rubbing I don't want any rubbing so there's always that generally there's no more than two people in the car and tools in the back and stuff maybe the trailer attached so we don't want any rubbing when the suspension under lights and I think the 215 60s will kill it be good setup the 65s maybe not all the way around We don't want to mismatch tire sizes and have problems with the traction control.

 

I had a hard time getting the wheel bearings out of the spindle. 60k Press couldn't handle it on its own, but maxing out the press and also hammering down with a sledge hammer at the same time got it out. Lots of corrosion buildup between the bearing flange and the spindle. Sprayed it down with PBlaster a week earlier and tried heating it with a salamander heater because apparently aluminum expands twice as much as steel, but that didn't help. A bigger press wouldve done it.

 

And this is in what state where is the car from The thing doesn't show where you are so whatever But yeah I guess sure this can happen under those poor conditions and my guess that's the car was used on boat ramps or God knows high moisture condition sure then you just pull the whole front hub off and get another one when you can beat apart I usually keep a couple spare sets around here loaded and ready to go just for that reason in case something like that happens but here in the southeast that's quite rare

 

For the lift kit what you have to do if you have aftermarket struts or actually any struts you have to turn the strut assembly over and grind off the bottoms of the splind bolt that are passing through your strut bottom plate right now You don't destroy the mess you just grind off the head of the bolt then hit it with a punch and the bolt flies out You do the other two the same and the other three on the other strut when you get over there then these splines aren't going to line up exactly you push the new ones up and you twist them gently until they look like they're as close as they're going to get then you smack them with a hammer and they'll drop in place We don't care if it messes up the star in the top plate a little bit no matter Bam install all three offer the strut up to the hole fit the top bolts loose and you're done The bearings will come out I keep extra hubs here already loaded just for these antics so I can throw them off to the side and bang them out this afternoon or in the morning fresh I haven't had a set I couldn't bang out yet maybe they left the bolts in or something I don't know as far as your lights going out are all the wheel sensors plugged up clicked in place and you have no codes for wheel sensors you only have codes for the breaking system itself actuator etc then you know what you have to do replace the actuator

 

Well when you go to put the 40 mm lift kit bushings and all that in you'll be able to look at your end links what you're usually the knocking things and take a look at your pins on your brakes which I never really heard making a knocking noise might make a ticking noise but The slide pins on your caliper assemblies can be pretty sloppy they're just pretty much allowing the caliper to slide a little bit they would have to be really sloppy would be able to tap them with a stick or a metal bar and see the whole thing clunk up and down I highly doubt it

 

Well you don't say how much you've lifted the vehicle I put mine on 40 mm that's 1.7 in or something like that and it is extremely noticeable and now I can fit two 15 65 tires on the vehicle. Pretty much without issue and it is a very noticeable difference climbing in and out of the car that's for sure Big difference I probably could have just jacked up the back 1.2 in and got near the same effect with the original tire size The 1.7 allows me to fit a little bit larger street tire which again picks the car up a little more and so on That's the main reason I lifted my Prius because I'm old and climbing down into the car gets more and more prohibitive as age gets higher.

 

The 185 65 15 tire total outer diameter is what 23 point something inches 23.6 something I can't remember I was looking it up the other day when you raise the car up 1.7 in that moves the center of your wheel from the center of the wheel well down towards the road and if you measure your wheel well side to side you could squeeze a 27-in outer diameter assembly in there but it wouldn't be very smart so I picked the 215 65 15 which is 26-in outer diameter overall the screw the wheel we're going by OD of the whole assembly that bolts right up on my car without rubbing scraping or any nonsense so take your 16-in wheel and now put in 215 60 16 what's the total OD of that assembly You want to stay around 26 26.2 it looks to me without lifting further. Google is your friend there are tire size calculators that you can use to do all this. But you want to be around 26.2 or 3 total OD for your wheel and tire assembly and you should be golden now if you have worn out struts and everything is flattened every time you go over a bump everything is compressing all the way then that tires going to hit and or rub You need to address the suspension problem not just lift it up You lift it up and go over a bump and it's able to compress all the way down the wheel wells coming down on top of the tire because you got no suspension or it's very worn out.