I've only had the truck a year, but I fully believe those shocks had all 173,000 miles on them!

 

A ratcheting box wrench (18mm I think) through the hole provided was the way I found easiest. A deep socket just didn't allow for a lot of room to work with.

 

The whole shock body turns as one, rusted solid so I cut the fronts out on top with a reciprocating saw and on bottom I broke the bolts and blew them out with an air hammer and round chisel on the air hammer.....a grade 5 replacement bolt cost me 4.29 at the local hardware store and .79 for the nut! the rears were wrong so I mailed them back to Summit, my new ones should be here within the week

 

....theres a nut on the piston part of the shock that youre supposed to put a wrench on to keep it from spinning

 

these were aftermarket shocks.......I didn't see a nut.....I looked, I promise

 

at 164,716 miles, would it be a good idea to change shocks? dont really know a whole lot about shocks, but i do know that my truck doesnt ride near as good as it did when i bought it 3 years ago with 116000 and my front passenger side makes a loud pop when i hid a hard bump or pothole.

 

Air ratchet and vice grips makes it easy. I'll be doing this when spring comes and replace my crappy (too stiff) rs5000's with some rs9000xl's.

 

you can always loosen the bed bolts and put a 2" block of wood between the bed and frame for added clearance.



Or take the bed all the way off and its a breeze

 

probably need ball joints too, and yes the shocks definitely need to be replaced

 

Thanks patman ill get on that tomorrow!

 

Or there's always the "torch the top nut off" method. this way works very well and is quite fast, but you gotta make sure there is nothing around that can catch fire.