Agreed, they appear to be shock absorbers to me, but for some reason people seem to keep calling them struts when I talk about it at a parts counter.

Given that the assembly does not have a built in rest / perch for a spring built in to the shock body (what i would consider a strut) I'll call it a shock.

Since I am looking for installation advice for putting the bilstein's on a 2003 Expedition, please share any install advice you may have.

Thanks for the clarification.