Slowmustanggt
Junior Member
I have a 2011 ram 1500 that I've been wanting to level for a while now and after doing a lot of research decided to go with Bilstein 5100 set at 2.8 and 1 inch rear spacer. I'm pretty mechanically inclined and do 90% of the work on all my vehicles myself so started to disassemble the front end of the truck and everything was going great until it came time to take out the lower strut mount bolt. The nut came off no problem but no matter what I tried from an impact gun to a 3lb hammer the bolt would just bounce in the rubber bushing and not move. After 3 hours of this I decided to put everything back together and that's when things went really bad. When I went to tighten the upper ball joint I used a half inch ratchet and as I tightened I heard a crack and saw a crack on the knuckle where the ball joint connects. At this point I was beyond frustrated and decided to suck it up and have it towed to my friends shop. Has anyone else had problems getting the lower strut bolt out or is it just me? Is the knuckle on Rams that weak that it can be cracked by a half inch ratchet?