Hello,

I have just purchased 2 factory front heavy duty shocks for the truck, and
was wondering for a little step by step help. For the bottom bolt, do I
turn the bolt head to loosen off or do I turn the large nut and keep bolt
head from turning?

One thing I'm noticing for the nuts is that it's not easily fitting a Socket, when looking at the nut closer the hole inside looks Oval not round, and this seems to be why socket aint fittin good. I've tryed metric and standard.

I'm talking about the nut it self. You should be able to get a socket on it. And by holding this nut up to the light you can see that it's not circular it's oval looking and to me it looks and if it's ben compressed(squished) a little.

I'm having trouble getting a socket on the nuts on the trucks shocks
also, as I'm seeing the same problem.

Some help would be greatly appreciated, Thanks in Advance...

 

Hi speedr26, That squished effect that you see on the nut is because it is a lock nut. It helps to keep the nut from backing off after it is tightened. Try a six point socket if you have one (1/2" drive if you can fit it) and it really doesn't matter which side you turn. You should have new rubber grometts with the new shock so feel free to shoot some penetrating oil on the old ones. That might help the bolt spin inside the old rubbers and assist you in your removal. Are you installing new bolts and nuts with your new shocks? I hope so. If you want to lock a pair of vise grips on either of the pieces...either the bolt or the nut then feel free to do so. As long as you get them off. That is what matters right? If your shocks have a nylon keeper on them to prevent them from expanding to full length it may be to your advantage to put a jack under the front suspension and install the top part of the shock first and jack the suspension up to meet the hole for the bottom bolt. Or the other way around will work. If you remove the existing nylon keeper you will have to compress the shock by hand and bar to get it to line up with the bolt hole. I hope that this helps and thanks for joining FTE !

 

It is a metric bolt... make sure you're using metric sockets. 18mm I believe (but not 100% positive)

11/16" is roughly the same at 17mm... the next standard size is 3/4" which is roughly 19mm, There is no standard "equivalent" for 18mm, which may be why you can't get a socket on the bolts.

The oval shape is in fact a locking nut.. threads are cut kind of funny at the end of the nut to ensure a "locking" effect.. just makes them a bit harder to remove is all.

Other than that it's a simple NUT AND BOLT deal.. should come right out. Good luck!

 

My 97 is screwy. It has a 18mm nut with a large oval flat metal tab attached to the nut on the inside of the control arm and a 10mm bolt head on the outside of the control arm. I think the tab on the 18mm nut was so they didn't have to use a wrench at the factory. They just held it by hand to start it and then tightened it with a 10mm from outside the control arm where they had more room to work. I've seen a photo of, I'm sure, a later model that had the nut on the outside of the control arm. Long story short, I can't get mine off. I think I'm going to have to grind off the head of the bolt and pound it through.

 

A hint for you if you don't have the job done yet is to consider an SAE bolt replacement that snug fits the shock and drilling out he mount holes to just match .
Use grade 8 fine thread bolts long enough for a nut and a thin lock nut..
This will give you a tight job that won't clunk from the looseness of the original assembly.
Been there before.
Good luck.

 

Hello all, thanks to all that replyed. Very impressive forum, have spent a number of hours just reading everyones posts in here.

One question I have left on this topic is being that when I'm tightening down Top Nut I'm not sure how tight to make it since it's a rubber washer/spacer that I'm tightening down on. And I don't have a torque wrench, Yet... 8^)