Tuesday, August 24, 2010 - 08:59 pm, by: Daniel Blackham(Daniel24)
Removing airbags on a UZZ31 and installing Supra shocks.
I recently decided to swap out my 18 year old Airbags for something a little newer and fresher as ever since I bought this car the Airbag system hasn’t worked. Now there aren’t many options for replacement, you can either buy brand spanking new airbags from Toyota for an arm and a leg, buy second hand ones and gamble on how long they will last, or you can replace the whole system with shocks for next to nothing. The first option would leave the car in factory condition and have great results, but I could not justify spending that sort of cash. So I looked around and picked up some used factory Bilsteins from a last model JZA80 Supra, these were supposed to bolt directly in and with the stock Supra springs, provide a great ride height and a nice balance between comfort and performance.
The reason for me writing this is before I contemplated the task ahead, I had a look around in search of information on what to do, and how to do it. There was some great info out there especially for the Toyota Supra (See Here) but it isn’t exactly the same, and unfortunately there wasn’t much info for the 31, also many people weren’t sure on some of the specifics of the job, or what the outcome would be.
I hope that this may help some of the people out there thinking of doing the same thing, and if this is of use to just one person, then I’ll be happy I wrote this down.
So get ready to get dirty.
Tools we used:
Trolley Jacks Jack Stands Sockets, Normal & Deep 10/12/14/17/19 Ratchets in varying sizes ½ and ¼ with extender bars Spanners 12/14/17/19 Crowbar & Metal poles Screwdrivers Allen Key Rubber Mallet Grease WD40 Electrical Tape
To note; You can use this guide if you are installing coilovers, or reinstalling new Airbags Late model Supra Bilsteins are a direct bolt in, with no extra parts required. If you don’t or can’t remove all the air from the system, make sure you have enough jacks or jack stands to support the car. Doing this by yourself, you should expect to spend 4+ hours at a casual rate to work through all corners.
Removing and fitting the rears.
First up is to take the wheels off. Jack the car up and use jack stands for safety.
With the wheel off it should look like this.}
First up you’ll need to disconnect the airlines going to the airbags, there threaded in so break the seal with a spanner, and remove the line. Air will come rushing out, though if you’re like me and your bags had no air in it or you let it all out first then it will come to a loud stop in a few seconds.
Once removed place it somewhere safe so it doesn’t get tangled or damaged, if you are not removing the lines you can seal the nibs off later using electrical tape.
Now we need to remove this bolt at the bottom of the Airbag, held on by a nut on the other side
A long handled socket on one side and a spanner on the other side makes getting it off a breeze. Once the nut is off you can pull the bolt from the holding, if you have trouble removing the bolt you can jack up the hub until it frees up.
Next we are removing one ball join from the link assembly, you can remove the lower or top ball joint, doing this gives us enough room to fit the new shocks. I recommend removing the bottom ball joint only as it’ll give you more room to refit when the replacement strut is in. Learn from my mistakes!
Up to the boot, were about to remove the airbag electrical covers & Tophat bolts, so time to remove the rear boot lining.
Remove this clip
Three nuts on top, 10mm sockets will suffice.
Now to remove the next three nuts holding the Airbag in, you’ll need deep sockets, 10mm also.
The Airbag will then drop down.
Now we can remove the first Airbag, you can compress these with both hands and a bit of muscle power (If you let go it will extend back to normal so keep pressure on it), once compressed pull up and remove the bottom of the strut first and then lower it down to the side of the lower control arm, this will allow us to remove it top first from the wheel arch.
Once out this is the comparison.
Fitting the new strut is a little different then removing the Airbag, this is the way that I did it;
•If you jack is on the bottom of the hub, then remove it.
•Place a crowbar as shown below, you’ll need a couple centimetres leverage to fit the new strut.
•Next move the strut into the wheel arch, and position the top of the strut into the three bolt holes. If you like you can bolt the top into place, only a couple threads will do, we don’t want it tight just yet.
•Next were going to put a little pressure on the hub so it moves down roughly 3cm, just enough for us to move the strut bottom into position. (If you can, dont put too much pressure on the assembly, as you can damage other components).
•Once the bottom and top of the strut is in place, we can work on bolting it up.
Next up we need to refit the bottom bolt, it will make it easier to line up the holes on the strut if you jack up the bottom of the hub again.
And using a rubber mallet carefully tap the strut into position.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010 - 09:12 pm, by: Daniel Blackham(Daniel24)
Grease up the bolt.
And refit, may need to tap it all the way through with the mallet. Retighten with some long spanners and ratchets for leverage, you don’t want this to come loose!
Let’s replace our link assembly, a tip if you’re having trouble tightening this is to use an Allen Key in the thread end, and a spanner for tightening, this will stop the balljoint from spinning and is illustrated three pictures below.
Hand tighten the top nuts
Make sure everything here is tight.
Refit the wheel and drop the car.
Now tighten the Tophat nuts, really tight.
If you’ll be keeping your airlines, you can tape your connector to the Airbag to stop debris getting in there, and refit the grommet, or put a blanking grommet in its place and fasten it somewhere in the boot.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010 - 09:32 pm, by: Daniel Blackham(Daniel24)
Onto the fronts.
Note: Removing the left and right front struts is a different procedure, on the left side (Passenger) you have to move a couple other things out of the way, this will be outlined here.
On the right side (Drivers) you only have to remove the lower inner guard, and some of the upper.
--ATTENTION--
BEFORE REMOVING THE TOP AXLE ARM BOLT, LEVERAGE THE HUB ASSEMBLY SO YOU DO NOT STRAIN THE BRAKE LINES. (See below)
I firstly removed my airlines, same as the rears.
Removed the strut cover.
Wheel removed.
Removing the top balljoint of the link assembly, you can remove the top or bottom, one is enough.
Next the bottom bolt holding the bottom of the strut, same way as the rears. Remove it.
Now to make enough room to fit the new struts, we have to remove this long bolt on the top of the front axle arm, now spanner one side and a socket the other.
What I didn’t realise didn’t realise was that there was a couple obstacles in my way, one being these wires running down the axle arm to the hub, and the water tank to the left of it. Once these are moved we can remove that bolt.
So remove the lower portion of the inner guard revealing the water tank we have to move.
There are two bolts here that need to be removed, one under my top finger, and one where the other is pointing.
The one to the right releases the wires so you can giggle them out of the way.
Removing the water tank comprises of two bolts, in the top picture it’s the one on the left, and the bottom picture shows the bolt already removed.
Now were able to move the water tank slightly out of the way.
--ATTENTION--
BEFORE REMOVING THE TOP AXLE ARM BOLT, LEVERAGE THE HUB ASSEMBLY SO YOU DO NOT STRAIN THE BRAKE LINES.
(Here I used some cable connected from the calliper to the control arm. If you like you can do it with a jack or anything that will hold).
Now time to remove the top bolt, you may need some vice grips to pull it out.
Remove the front axle arm and place it where you think you’ll have enough room to fit the new shocks.
Time to remove the Airshock as per the rears.
Fitting the front shock will be easier then the rears as you should have more room, no need for a crowbar, once fitted you can line up your bolt holes top and bottom using a jack and mallet, below is perfectly lined up ready for its bolt.
Grease up the bolt, and refit it.
The top of the axle arm is next, this is the hard one, if you can giggle the top of the arm while trying to thread the greased bolt back in as you cant sight these holes to make sure everything is lined up, it should slide in if you giggle it correctly.
Tighten like hell, don’t forget the washers on either end.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010 - 09:37 pm, by: Daniel Blackham(Daniel24)
Now you can refit your water tank, reclamp your wires and screw in your inner guard.
Now we need to bolt in the top of the shock, and if you like, you can go for the stock look, just refit your airbag electrical top covers. You’ll need deep sockets for this.
Refit all wheels, lower the car and you’re nearly done!
Now you’ll need to remove two fuses so you don’t get a dash warning message. There is one 20a fuse in the driver’s footwell, pull back the carpet and you’ll see the fuse box. And one 60a fuse located in the engine bay.
Outlined here.
You can also switch the boot TEMS switch to off for good measure.
Because of my obsessive compulsive attitude to my cars, I went around and checked all the nuts were done up tightly enough for a second time, just to be safe
Congratulations!! You’re done!
This is the ride height you’ll have when complete, I think its perfect, not stupidly low, and not 4wd high, just right.
Two different angles.
Measured from top of the rim to the middle of the wheel arch.
Front height: 13cm Rear Height 13cm
All the work was carried out by myself and Richard L, big thank you Richard for all your help on the day!
This whole procedure took us roughly 5 – 6 hours while we figured out what to do, this included a pub lunch with beers and a couple trips to Autobarn. God I was tired after doing that, and dirty as hell, still sore the next day from all the hard work! But it sure is worth it.
So there you have it, a better handling car that you can enjoy for years to come, and now you don’t need to worry about saggy bags, until you get older.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 12:06 am, by: Mike Beck(Gold_40gt)
Cool mate.
Excellent work on the write up, need a bit more of that around here.
I did this to my UZZ31 about 2 years ago now, was pretty straight forward.
Rode much nicer on the stock JZZ31 suspension, the air bags dampers were shagged, but I still sold them for $400, apparently they were worth something to others since the air bags were still intact.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 07:32 am, by: Matthew Sharpe(Madmatt)
Good writeup. One tip, you should place a jack under the hub and jack the suspension into a "settled" position before tightening the upper wishbone (160n/m is the torque setting from memory)
This will stop the rubber bushes from twisting and breaking.
Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 07:54 am, by: Matthew Sharpe(Madmatt)
The chart I have lists the following settings:
Shock absorber to body (top of shock) 35N/M Shock to suspension arm (bottom of shock) 143N/M Upper suspension arm mouting nut 164N/M (hey, my memory isn't too bad after all!) Piston rod lock nut 29N/M (wow, I would have thought a lot more than that!) Stabiliser links 74N/M
Monday, January 10, 2011 - 01:21 pm, by: Vincent Chan(Vincent191)
Dan, how's your Bilsteins compared to the air bags?? I am after comfort more than performance. Only 1 of my struts are playing up, looks like the dampers are on it's way out and it's making a clunking noise.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 02:35 pm, by: Daniel Blackham(Daniel24)
The Bilsteins arnt bad, its a mod that I am very happy with. I'll say that I'm VERY happy to not have Airbags anymore and the comfort isnt much different.
They arnt too hard and arnt too soft, great for a daily driver, and I've had no problems so far.
John Jantzen TryHard Tasmania V8 '31 on '30 suspension
Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 08:58 pm, by: John Jantzen(Taslex)
The long bolt on the top axle arm does not have to be removed if you unbolt the bottom shock mount bracket. You need to take out the shock mount bolt first, and access is fairly difficult, but once you take out these two 8mm (12mm spanner size) bolts, the bracket comes off. You can then drop the new shock in through the top of the suspension member, loosely bolt it at the top, and then bring the bottom mount up onto the suspension member where the bracket normally is, by levering the suspension downwards. Slip the shocker bracket into place, bolt it up and drift the shocker into alignment with the bracket's holes, using a large Philips driver. I run UZZ30 shocks on mine, and am very happy with the result. Would not bother going back to airbags.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 09:32 pm, by: James Johnson(Jimbo)
Nice write up as I have put coil over's in mine and this would have been handy to have. Just a further tip and sorry I did'nt take any pictures but when I did all this I still had the dash warning message and needed to remove the suspension ecu. I don't think it is that common to remove it when doing this mod but just a little extra info for those that might need to take the ecu out it is located in the left side rear passengers, side wall. You need to take out the back seats then try and pry that side panel off and then look for the suspension ecu and disconnect it then you should be all set and no longer have the warning on your dash.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013 - 06:41 pm, by: Ian Johnston(Ted)
Just to add to this writeup, I have just changed out my airbags to UZZ30 struts/springs using new KYB shocks. I removed the 2 fuses, or at least I think I have removed the correct one in the cab, and the light/message was still up on the dash. I turned the switch in the boot back on, and alls good now. No more message, and light. I am going to double check the cab fuse another day.