Awhile back I replaced a blown-out rear shock with some Monroe load leveler coil-overs. Like them, but they exaggerated the rake even worse than factory. So the other day I discovered I had suffered the well-know Front coil spring failure again (second one, opposite side). Decided to fix the rake problem at the same time by replacing both front coils with Moog heavy-duty springs and installing Bilstein 5100 leveling shocks. Took the truck to my trusted shop guy, who I know has installed these before. Surprised when I got a call from him telling me there's no way these shocks would fit. He compressed the springs fully until the coils were touching and the shock was still almost an inch from reaching the top plate. He even got a set of stock springs - same issue. Said he could get them on at the lowest setting, but knew that wasn't what I wanted and would do nothing to level the truck. I ended up making a three hour trip to get some Rancho Quicklift Loaded levelers just so I could get the truck back on the road and off my buddies lift. More money, but happy with them so far. Anyone else encountered this problem?

 

I did this install myself earlier this year, 5100 shocks on the stock springs.

No issues, fit fine, I used the 1" lift setting. I used 4 spring compressors per spring and grabbed them from the highest/lowest coils so it gets the most compression.

As far as getting the strut in with the new shock, you have to really spread the suspension down with a pry bar so it fits.

 

No experience with the Bilsteins...but I have had the Rancho Quick Lift Loaded's for 65k miles and am happy with them...I would just leave them and forget it personally!

FWIW!

 

I did the same thing I used the moog hd springs they were touching when compressed I finally got them on the shocks they were a pain in the A** after I had them on they finally started to separate a little I put them on the Bilstein shocks on the stock height

 

IIRC there are different instructions depending on if it's 2004-2008 or 2009-2014

 

I just did this installation of the Bilstein 5100 shocks on my '05 F150 XL 4x4. It took me a while to figure out that I had put the lower spring perch on upside down. If you flip it over it will lower the spring down so that it will not need an impossible amount of compression.