To read the original full thread and post questions/comments on this topic, please go to http://www.fjcruiserforums.com/foru...icon-vehicle-dynamics-ivd-stage-2-2010-a.html
Thank you to anumeric. Your Install write-up for Donahoe UCAs was a great help. This is basically an update to your thread. It shows how I installed an Icon stage 2 suspension on my 2010 FJ. The stage 2 included:
Why I did this to my FJ:
I wanted to increase the ground clearance of the FJ and wanted a suspension which could handle the weight of skids, bumpers, etc. I decided to do this myself because heck I think anyone can. Also if I had let someone else do it I’m sure they would have forced some defective parts to fit (see ‘BEFORE you lay a wrench to the FJ’) and I’d be left with a messed up suspension.
Why Icon:
I chose an Icon suspension because I heard good things about them from other members of this forum. I wanted a company that had good customer service and who made a good quality product. I wanted a suspension that wasn’t too radical but could enhance the wheeling ability of the FJ.
Required tools:
To relieve yourself of any potential frustration you should check a few things before you start disassembly of the FJ. I found that Icon was happy to replace some defective parts. If you need to talk to Icon I recommend going straight to a phone call and don’t rely on email or voice mail.
If you bolt on the Icon coil-overs you will have a problem trying to put back the OEM units. This is because the total width of the bottom of an IVD coil-over (with the spacers) is almost 2/16 of an inch less then the bottom of an OEM coil-over. Therefore when you toque down the bolt you will bend the bracket on the LCA to the width of the IVD coil-over and the OEM coil-over will no longer fit.
Icon says this coil-over can provide up to 3.5” of lift. They also say that the coil-over is preset to net about 2” of lift. Furthermore they say that you should never set the adjuster ring to expose more than 2” of thread between the shock top cap and adjuster ring. The preset gap between the top cap and adjuster is about 1 ¼”. If the adjuster ring is moved down another ¾” and you assume you get 2 inches of preset lift then the total real attainable lift is about 2 ¾” not 3 ½” (depending on the weight of your FJ).
The sway bar relocation bracket has some washers that are used to lower the brackets for the front skid. This will affect your FJ in a few ways. Since the skid is lower, the tabs on the front of the skid will no longer line up with the holes in the front of the frame cross member. The jack point at the rear of the skid will no longer be usable (unless you don’t mind bending the skid) because the skid will be moved away from the frame cross member underneath it. The skid will be a little lower then the skid under the engine (unless you also lower this skid).
Here’s what to check:
Front
Now that you are relatively sure you have the parts necessary to complete the install it is time to begin. The first thing to do is jack up the FJ and remove both front wheels. After you remove each wheel you should place a jack stand under the frame rail just forward of the body mount (notice the jack stands in the picture). After you have the wheels removed you will see something like the picture below. This is the passenger side.
You can use your molding removal tool to pop out the 4 indicated plastic fasteners. This will give you access to required areas. Next remove a 10mm bolt attaching the speed sensor wire to the knuckle
and another attaching it to the UCA.
Then you can remove 3 12mm bolts attaching the brake line. 1 is on the knuckle.
Another 2 are on the frame. These bolts might be stuck so a 6 point socket might work better then a 12 point socket because the bolt heads will be less likely to get rounded off.
You want to remove the above bolts to allow the steering knuckle to drop without stretching the speed sensor wire or the brake line. Next remove the front skid so you can get to the sway bar. There are 2 12mm bolts in the front
and 2 12mm bolts in the back.
Next remove the 2 sway bar brackets. Each is attached with 2 14mm bolts. You might want to cover the sway bar with a towel so when it drops to the tubular brackets below, it won’t knock off any paint.
Then disconnect the sway bar links from the knuckles. There is 1 17mm bolt per side.
Now you can rotate the sway bar up and out of the way. You are now ready to remove the coil-over. First remove the 3 14mm nuts on the top of the coil-over.
Then remove the 19mm nut and bolt from the bottom of the coil-over. You may need a long punch or alignment tool to push out the bolt.
You can now remove the coil-over. Push down on the coil-over to free the top 3 bolts and pull the bottom from the LCA bracket. If you try hard enough you can fish the coil-over around the tie rod and remove it. If you can’t get it out then first remove the UCA. Remove the cotter pin and then the 19mm castle nut.
Then use the tie rod puller to pop the taper from the knuckle. You might have to fiddle with the puller a little to get it on the knuckle. I slid it on from the rear. You might also want to support the LCA with the jack.
Next remove the 19mm UCA pivot nut and bolt. I had no problem sliding the long pivot bolt forward and all the way out of the UCA.
If you couldn’t remove the coil-over before it should be easy to do it now with the UCA out of the way. With all the old parts off the FJ it’s time to install all the new parts. The first thing to do is put in the coil-over. The top of the coil-over has a brass charge port. Make sure this port is facing toward the outside of the FJ. The bottom of the coil-over has a long spacer and a short spacer. Make sure the long spacer is toward the front of the FJ. I put the top of the coil-over in first and then pushed down on the LCA (real hard) while I pushed the bottom of the coil-over into the LCA bracket. Before you bolt in the coil-over make sure the 2 spacers on the bottom of the coil-over did not fall off and you installed it like specified above. Use 3 of the 1 inch long 9/16 inch bolts with lock washers to secure the top of the coil-over to the shock tower. Torque the bolts to 47 ft. lbs. I could not get a socket on the back bolt so I used a wrench.
Use the bolt, washer, and nut from the bottom of the old coil-over to attach the new coil-over to the LCA. The bolt goes in from the rear so the nut and washer are on the front. Torque the nut to 100 ft. lbs.
Now you need to assemble the IVD UCA. Below is how I did it. The Icon install doc says to use red Loctite and torque the 12 point ½ inch bolt to 50 ft. lbs. I used 2 14m 1.5 pitch bolts locked together on the taper to keep the taper from rotating while I applied 50 ft. lbs. to the 12 point bolt.
CONTINUED BELOW....
Thank you to anumeric. Your Install write-up for Donahoe UCAs was a great help. This is basically an update to your thread. It shows how I installed an Icon stage 2 suspension on my 2010 FJ. The stage 2 included:
- For Front
- (2) IVD extended travel coil-overs. The coil-overs come with1 long and 1 short spacer zip tied to the bottom mount. They also come with 6 hex head bolts and 6 lock washers (3 each per coil-over). ICON P/N 5-8645
- (2) IVD upper control arms (UCAs). The picture shows the Icon UCA with a taper installed in the uni-ball. They come with 2 tapers, 2 taper caps, and 2 dust covers (1 each per UCA). The dust covers come with 8 Allen bolts (4 per UCA) and 2 o-rings (1 per UCA). They also come with 4 long and 4 short spacers (2 each per UCA) and 2 12 point bolts (1 per UCA). ICON P/N 5-8550
- (2) IVD sway bar relocation brackets (the 2010 version comes with 6 washers 11/64” thick, 4 socket head Allen bolts and 4 hex head bolts with washers). I also received the bracket on the bottom which came with 4 hex bolts and washers but was unnecessary. ICON P/N 5-8645
- (2) IVD extended travel coil-overs. The coil-overs come with1 long and 1 short spacer zip tied to the bottom mount. They also come with 6 hex head bolts and 6 lock washers (3 each per coil-over). ICON P/N 5-8645
- For Rear
- (2) IVD 2” lift coil springs. ICON P/N 5-2700
- (2) IVD piggy back shocks. They come with 4 spacers (2 per shock), 2 hex head bolts (1 per shock), and 2 rubber coated metal tube brackets (1 per shock). ICON P/N 5-7710
- (2) IVD 2” lift coil springs. ICON P/N 5-2700
Why I did this to my FJ:
I wanted to increase the ground clearance of the FJ and wanted a suspension which could handle the weight of skids, bumpers, etc. I decided to do this myself because heck I think anyone can. Also if I had let someone else do it I’m sure they would have forced some defective parts to fit (see ‘BEFORE you lay a wrench to the FJ’) and I’d be left with a messed up suspension.
Why Icon:
I chose an Icon suspension because I heard good things about them from other members of this forum. I wanted a company that had good customer service and who made a good quality product. I wanted a suspension that wasn’t too radical but could enhance the wheeling ability of the FJ.
Required tools:
- (2) Jacks preferably a floor jack and some other jack like maybe a bottle jack
- (2) Jack stands
- 10mm, 12mm, 14mm, 17mm, 19mm & 9/16 inch sockets and socket wrench
- ½ inch 12 point socket
- 8mm Allen (hex) socket style wrench (a socket Allen wrench will allow you to use your torque wrench)
- Torque wrench for above sockets
- Small (import style) tie rod puller and wrench (I think this is much better then a pickle fork and the repair manual shows a puller)
- 9/16 inch and 17mm open end wrench
- Pliers
- 6 inch crescent wrench
- 19mm or possibly 22mm wrench or socket (to hold the taper while you torque down the 12 point bolt)
- Trim and molding removal tool (to remove wheel well splash guards)
- 12mm 6 point socket (to grab stuck bolts better then a 12 point socket can)
- 14m 1.5 pitch die (to if necessary cut threads on IVD UCA tapers)
- Workbench mounted vise (to hold UCA while you assemble it)
- Punch or alignment tool (to remove the bolt at the bottom of the coil-over)
- Red Loctite
- (2) 14m 1.5 pitch bolts (to hold the taper while you torque down the 12 point bolt)
- Black paint (to paint parts and rusty FJ)
- (2) New OEM ball joint castle nuts (the repair manual says to use new nuts. The Toyota P/N I got was 90171-A0001)
- (2) Large washers (about the same size as the washers included with the sway bar relocation bracket) big enough to fit over the UCA taper threads and about 11/64” thick (to enable cotter pins to engage castle nuts)
- (2) Custom brackets (to hold piggy back shocks stationary, replaces included IVD tube holders)
- (2) 8mm 1.25 pitch bolts (to bolt above brackets to FJ frame)
To relieve yourself of any potential frustration you should check a few things before you start disassembly of the FJ. I found that Icon was happy to replace some defective parts. If you need to talk to Icon I recommend going straight to a phone call and don’t rely on email or voice mail.
If you bolt on the Icon coil-overs you will have a problem trying to put back the OEM units. This is because the total width of the bottom of an IVD coil-over (with the spacers) is almost 2/16 of an inch less then the bottom of an OEM coil-over. Therefore when you toque down the bolt you will bend the bracket on the LCA to the width of the IVD coil-over and the OEM coil-over will no longer fit.
Icon says this coil-over can provide up to 3.5” of lift. They also say that the coil-over is preset to net about 2” of lift. Furthermore they say that you should never set the adjuster ring to expose more than 2” of thread between the shock top cap and adjuster ring. The preset gap between the top cap and adjuster is about 1 ¼”. If the adjuster ring is moved down another ¾” and you assume you get 2 inches of preset lift then the total real attainable lift is about 2 ¾” not 3 ½” (depending on the weight of your FJ).
The sway bar relocation bracket has some washers that are used to lower the brackets for the front skid. This will affect your FJ in a few ways. Since the skid is lower, the tabs on the front of the skid will no longer line up with the holes in the front of the frame cross member. The jack point at the rear of the skid will no longer be usable (unless you don’t mind bending the skid) because the skid will be moved away from the frame cross member underneath it. The skid will be a little lower then the skid under the engine (unless you also lower this skid).
Here’s what to check:
- Make sure you have all the IVD pieces and parts and the correct 2010 sway bar relocation brackets (see pictures above).
- Make sure a 14m 1.5 pitch nut will screw onto the UCA tapers without using excessive force i.e. using only your fingers. You might have to clean up the threads a little bit around the hole drilled into the taper for the cotter pin. Here is a picture of 2 tapers. Look at where the two tapers are touching. The threads in the green section of the left taper are flat on top instead of pointed like the one on the right. This is because the threads are not cut deep enough and are not fully formed. The red area of the left taper indicates the area I re-cut with a 14m 1.5 die. Before I did this a nut would not even go 1 turn onto this taper without using a wrench. You could force a castle nut onto this taper but if you did you would ruin the nut, the taper, or both. Notice the ‘rough’ area around the hole on the right taper.
- Assemble (temporarily) the tapers into the UCAs with the 12 point bolts and caps and make sure the tapers will rotate far enough to actually touch the side of the UCA. Here is a picture of 2 UCAs with the tapers mounted in the uni-ball. The top taper will rotate so far that it touches the UCA. It actually put a small dent in the UCA when I had it on the FJ. The bottom taper will not rotate near as far. It turned out the cap used on the bottom UCA was not machined properly and it prevented the full rotation of the taper.
- Make sure the UCA spacers will fit on a 14m bolt. This isn’t a show stopper and is easy to fix with a round file. Here is a picture of one of the long spacers. The arrow is pointing to a lip that was left on the inside of the spacer. This lip stopped the bolt from going thru the spacer.
Front
Now that you are relatively sure you have the parts necessary to complete the install it is time to begin. The first thing to do is jack up the FJ and remove both front wheels. After you remove each wheel you should place a jack stand under the frame rail just forward of the body mount (notice the jack stands in the picture). After you have the wheels removed you will see something like the picture below. This is the passenger side.
You can use your molding removal tool to pop out the 4 indicated plastic fasteners. This will give you access to required areas. Next remove a 10mm bolt attaching the speed sensor wire to the knuckle
and another attaching it to the UCA.
Then you can remove 3 12mm bolts attaching the brake line. 1 is on the knuckle.
Another 2 are on the frame. These bolts might be stuck so a 6 point socket might work better then a 12 point socket because the bolt heads will be less likely to get rounded off.
You want to remove the above bolts to allow the steering knuckle to drop without stretching the speed sensor wire or the brake line. Next remove the front skid so you can get to the sway bar. There are 2 12mm bolts in the front
and 2 12mm bolts in the back.
Next remove the 2 sway bar brackets. Each is attached with 2 14mm bolts. You might want to cover the sway bar with a towel so when it drops to the tubular brackets below, it won’t knock off any paint.
Then disconnect the sway bar links from the knuckles. There is 1 17mm bolt per side.
Now you can rotate the sway bar up and out of the way. You are now ready to remove the coil-over. First remove the 3 14mm nuts on the top of the coil-over.
Then remove the 19mm nut and bolt from the bottom of the coil-over. You may need a long punch or alignment tool to push out the bolt.
You can now remove the coil-over. Push down on the coil-over to free the top 3 bolts and pull the bottom from the LCA bracket. If you try hard enough you can fish the coil-over around the tie rod and remove it. If you can’t get it out then first remove the UCA. Remove the cotter pin and then the 19mm castle nut.
Then use the tie rod puller to pop the taper from the knuckle. You might have to fiddle with the puller a little to get it on the knuckle. I slid it on from the rear. You might also want to support the LCA with the jack.
Next remove the 19mm UCA pivot nut and bolt. I had no problem sliding the long pivot bolt forward and all the way out of the UCA.
If you couldn’t remove the coil-over before it should be easy to do it now with the UCA out of the way. With all the old parts off the FJ it’s time to install all the new parts. The first thing to do is put in the coil-over. The top of the coil-over has a brass charge port. Make sure this port is facing toward the outside of the FJ. The bottom of the coil-over has a long spacer and a short spacer. Make sure the long spacer is toward the front of the FJ. I put the top of the coil-over in first and then pushed down on the LCA (real hard) while I pushed the bottom of the coil-over into the LCA bracket. Before you bolt in the coil-over make sure the 2 spacers on the bottom of the coil-over did not fall off and you installed it like specified above. Use 3 of the 1 inch long 9/16 inch bolts with lock washers to secure the top of the coil-over to the shock tower. Torque the bolts to 47 ft. lbs. I could not get a socket on the back bolt so I used a wrench.
Use the bolt, washer, and nut from the bottom of the old coil-over to attach the new coil-over to the LCA. The bolt goes in from the rear so the nut and washer are on the front. Torque the nut to 100 ft. lbs.
Now you need to assemble the IVD UCA. Below is how I did it. The Icon install doc says to use red Loctite and torque the 12 point ½ inch bolt to 50 ft. lbs. I used 2 14m 1.5 pitch bolts locked together on the taper to keep the taper from rotating while I applied 50 ft. lbs. to the 12 point bolt.
CONTINUED BELOW....