I'm thinking about getting new shocks(Ranchos 9000's or Bilsteins) for my truck. I thought I might install them myself but have never attempted this kind of thing, so I thought I'd ask a couple questions.

- How long should it take?
- Do I need any special tools?
- Any tricks I need to know?
-Is it a pain in the butt to do, and should I just have a shop do it?
- How much will they charge me for labor?
- Anyone w/ the Rancho, what settings do you use?

Thanks in advance -

clancy

 

hey, well i ordered rancho rsx's last week, so hopefully i will have them to install this weekend. managed to install the spindles myself, so hopefully the shocks wont be to hard. let you know how the install goes.

***JasoN***

 

looking forward to the info

 

It took me about three hours to swap all 4 of mine out. Time will vary depending on how badly rusted on the various bolts are. I actually twisted the mouting stud off of one of the OEM front shocks. Gotta love road salt...

Anyways, apply penetrating oil liberally to each of the bolts to make it easier to get them off. Special tools that you may not have included the deep well sockets - 18mm for the rears, and 21mm (I think) for the front shocks. A wrench would have also worked on the front shocks but taken more time. I would check the size out, but the replacement shocks I put on in front had a different size (dropped by 1mm).

I put the front of the truck on Jack stands right at maximum drop of the suspension (wheels still on the ground), and it worked just fine. I did the rears without jacking the truck.

Check the sizes out before you start, and you should be fine. Good luck...

 

Mine isn't a F150, but the install was easy. Check out this thread:

https://www.f150online.com/forums/sh...threadid=13021