Has anybody ever replaced the plastic shims on the front springs of their Super Duty? That would be the shims that are on the very rear end of the front springs. I have an annoying creaking sound and someone suggested that the problem was the shims. Got under and took a look and found the drivers side shim almost broken in half and the passenger side one completely gone. Any help is appreciated..

 

ttt

 

First questions first, what does TTT mean?
I decided to reply back to this thread, because my buddy won't tell you that he fixed it, and how he fixed it. (take take take, never give back).

The solution to his problem was shims for the front leaf spring. The ford part number is 1C3Z5B302-AA. It is an 8 piece set of plactic doo-dads (yes, doo-dads, that is the technical term for them).

You jack the truck up by the frame to relieve as much weight as you can on one side, pry apart the top spring from the bottom spring, remove the old worn out shims, and then put in the 2 piece new shims. (2 pieces in the front of the spring, 2 in the rear, each side) The rounded one goes on the top (where the spring is round) and the flat piece goes down with the little protrusion facing the hole in the lower leaf spring.

Some pointers.

Use a big pry bar to pry the springs apart. We tried a tire iron and a large screwdriver, but they didn't work too well. We ended up using an old 20 mm machine gun barrel off of an F-16. For those that don't have any old F-16s laying around, a large (3-4 feet) pry bar would work.
To get to old whoditty out of the hole in the lower leaf spring, use a set of dykes or a knife to work it out through the bottom.
When putting the new lower piece in, don't worry about making the protrusion go through the hole, get it centered, put the rounded part on top of it, and do the other end. After you drive it around for a mile or so, mystically, the whole thing is just like new.


EODs truck sounded like crap before we did this $15.85 fix. (we did mine too, what the hell). Total time spent including getting tools, figuring out what the heck we were doing, and getting the gun barrel was 45 minutes for 2 trucks.

Hope this helps someone. Have a wonderful day...

 

to the top

 

Hey RescueBob, got any spare barrels? Preferably one attached to the rest of the "hardware". Would be just what I need to "cleanup" the LH lane during rush hour.

 

Keith,
I have been here since Sept 25th 2001, and I can't wait to go back to being a fireman in San Antonio. I hate the drivers here. Rest assured, if I could a) get the equipment, and b) figure out how to mount it on BeRT, you would have already seen me on the news, "sweeping" the highway as it were! LOL

 

Fortunately, the fix is just as easy as described here. Unfortunately it didn't help my squeaky rig. I still get the squeak pulling out of my drive way, down the 6 or 8" curb the developer thought would be so nice to have to slow me down coming into my drive so I don't hit the neighbor kids. But I digress.

I agree that the fix takes less time to do than it does to get out all the tools, jacks, jack stands, jerk the wheels (optional), put em back on (mandatory), and put it all away. If it helps you, great. It is worth a shot. I'm just saying it didn't help me.

Good luck.

Big

 

Can you get it to squeak when you jack it up and push in and out on the top of the tire like checking a wheel bearing? I've heard of the upper ball joints making a squeaking sound like the springs can. Usually you can do it with it jacked up as I've described.

Just a thought.

 

You can test it to see if it is the springs by spraying WD-40 where the shims go. As a side note, it is messy when you replace the shims, cuz there is rusty WD-40 all over your hands. LOL