Front air suspension conversion
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From: Billings, Montana
Front air suspension conversion
I performed the front air suspension conversion yeasterday to convert from air to normal suspension. I thought I'd right something up to share my experiance and offer some tips for those considering this. The shock conversion I used can be found at the following link. http://www.suncoreindustries.com/fordexp.asp
Pete
- The first thing to do while the wheels are still on the ground is to remove the upper nut securing the top of the shock absorber.
- Then jack the vehicle up and remove the wheel.
- Once the wheel is removed place a floor jack under the lower ball joint and use it to raise up the suspension to a normal position.
- Remove the bolt securing the upper ball joint, and replace it with a bolt the same size and thread to where it's flush with the stud. (This is done so as to protect the threads and the original bolt from damage) Take a hammer and hit up on the bolt to pop the ball joint loose from the spindle then remove the bolt. Doing this will make removal and installation of the shocks much easier.
- Carefully and slowly lower the floor jack to drop the lower part of the suspension as far as it'll go, the upper ball joint should slip out of the spindle while doing this.
- Once the suspesion is lowered then removal of the old shock can be performed. Using a openeded wrench slightly larger than the air tubing to the old shock, slip it over the tubing then push in on the colored ring where the tubing attaches to the shock, the tubing should then pull out.
- Remove the bottom bolt securing the shock
- Pry the old shock out from the top using what ever means you have to compress the shock (I used a couple of open ended wrenches to do this with).
- Now comes the tricky part. I found the easiest and as far as I can see the only way to install the new shocks is to compress them about 3" then secure them in a compressed state. I did this by using the loader bucket on my tractor (It was the only thing I could think of at the time, but it worked real well), then using wire wraped from the top of the shock to the bottom to secure them in a compressed state until I could get them installed. I couldn't see where it would be possible to install these without doing this.
- Put the top of the shock in first then the bottom and reinstall the bottom bolt on the shock.
- Slowly jack the suspension back up using the floor jack making sure the top of the shock is properly located while guiding the upper ball joint back in to the spindle and reinstall the ball joint nut, tighten up, then remove the floor jack.
- Once everything is secured and in place the wires used to hold the shock compressed can then be cut and removed, and the top shock bolt installed (insure the rubber bushings are properly centered before doing this).
- Tighten up all nuts to spec, the reattach the wheel.
Pete
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Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 20
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I have an '04 with 4 bag suspension so I can press my information button and it does a diagnostic through all systems. Air suspension is one of them, what tells the computer that you do not have the suspension installed anymore, so you don't thow any codes?
Thanks,
Shep
Thanks,
Shep
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