Have Monroe Sensatracs, front and rear, ready to go on. Never replaced shocks myself. I don't have jack stands and need to borrow a torque wrench.

A couple of questions:
Do I need to raise the truck to change shocks or can it be sitting on the ground?

If my book is right it looks like 30 ft-lbs for the upper front nut and 40 to 60 ft-lbs for all others. Does this sound right?

Any other tips?

Thanks for your help!

 

They can be changed on the ground......Fronts are easier if you jack it up and pull the wheel though.....lots easier to get to. Don't forget stands too. Rears are easy either way.

My torque on shocks is "tight".....I never used a torque wrench...just made sure I couldn't go any tighter. I sure don't want them coming loose. Do what the book says if you use a torque wrench.

Front top nut is a bear.......takes time to get it off.......you have to hold the stem and turn the nut. I use vice grips and a ratcheting box end wrench and lots of PB spray before. 3-4 beer job....Shops cut them off.

Good Luck
Bob

 

i cant say i have ever jacked up one of these trucks to do this job , period torque wrench on shocks never , like the above post says ,tighten till they are tight , never had an issue other than i cant get shocks to last my beast. although the skyjackers have lasted 4 years , i am trying superlifts this time

 

Thanks for the quick replies. I have a torque wrench now, and it looks like I can reach everything without removing wheels.

I'm starting right now, I'll let you know how it went.

 

Just started mine last night. Got one rear on before it got dark. Took about 2 hours but that includes getting out the jack, stands, tools, lights, etc. Pretty easy to do. Didn't have to pull the wheel. I did jack the truck up on the rear bumper to get the shocks to fit in without having to try and squeeze them in. The only problem I ran into was the fasteners. The upper nut was pretty bad but I had to reuse it as it was a metric and I didn't have anything comparable. Might go back and change it today now that the stores are open. The lower fasteners looked in great shape. The hardest part was trying to get the old shock off the upper hanger post (or whatever you want to call it). I had to wrestle with it for a while. Coating everything with dish soap helped in sliding everything back on. Good luck.

 

Got all 4 on last night in about 3hrs. I soaked all bolts in PB blaster a couple of days before though and that helped. Did it all with wheels on the ground.

For someone who hasn't done this, just plan ahead and look closely at how it all goes together and what parts are re-used and what should be replaced with new. If you have the correct size metric wrenches for the front, it helps alot. I didn't so I used crescent wrenches. I cut out the old front upper bushings to remove...could have re-used the Ford upper retaining nut but used the new nut and washer. Before installing the fronts, grease the first bushing and start it on the shock. Put the rubber boots on before installing, but don't tighten the wire tie until all done.

Yeah, the rear uppers were hard to get off. The first one I used a prybar, 2x4, large screwdriver and finally walked it off the bolt. The 2nd, I cut as much of the bushing out that I could and sprayed WD40 on it. Once it started going it slid off a lot easier.

Install the upper first, then you can compress these shocks by hand further than they need to be, then aim towards the lower mount. They move fairly slow, but have the bolt ready to slam in the hole when in position.

As for the torque wrench, it sounds like a good idea, but for one, there's not enough clearance to get it on the front upper with a socket and I didn't have the right size box-end. I just tightened the crap out of all bolts and used the torque wrench for leverage since it was a lot longer than my socket wrench.
HTH. Good luck with the other three.

 

Good gosh almighty, holy shockbounce batman. I'm so sore I can barely move. Spent all day getting the other three on. That includes spending two hours trying to find a store that had the right fasteners. Finally got everything and found out the nuts I got for the rear uppers were mismarked in the package and were bigger than the 18mm that came off. Biggest wrench I had was 18mm so I had to reuse the old ones. But I got them on. It did help to jack up the back of the truck at the hitch just so I didn't have to compress the shock any. The fronts were a different story. Didn't have to pull the wheels. Lower nuts and bolts came off fine. Upper seemed to turn once a got a wrench on the shaft to hold it. There was a nut at the top of the shock body just for this purpose. So I'm pulling on the wrench and it's turning just barely. Really had to put my back into it. What I actually was doing was twisting the whole shaft. The nut wasn't turning, the shaft was actually twisting. Finally it snapped off and I was able to pull the shock out. Same on the other side as well. I could have pulled the wheels and gotten a pipe on the wrench for leverage but just muscled through it. I'll be sorry tomorrow though. Then I went to put the fronts in and couldn't get the lower back into the bracket. Finally had to resort to hammering them into position. Not what I wanted to do but had no choice. Oh yeah, spent a while on the upper bushings, wondering why they didn't fall off when I pulled the shock. Pryed at em for awhile before I realized it was a one piece bushing, duh. Finally cut em enough to push them through with a screwdriver. Final issue was that with the bushings on the threads at the top were not exposed. So I had to squeeze em by hand and then get the nut just to start. I remembered an old trick we used to use years ago. Tighten em down to the point that the bushings just squish enough to be about the same size as the washers and you are good to go. Took it for a test drive and what a difference. Body roll is much better and the steering really tightened up. Really happy with the change. The old ones were really shot. My 5 year old could compress them. I'm still going to adjust the steering next weekend because it still wanders some but it's a world of difference. Used Bilstein HD all around and I'm very happy with them. Brett