I have no idea why this is so hard. I have a fair amount of experience working on car suspensions. But none with trucks. I'm putting on OEM 901 coils and OEM N98 shocks on the rear. I get the old shock off and start to compress the old spring then lower the axle. But i cannot get the damn spring out. The bumper piece inside gets in the way. Plus my spring compressor is a external one from Autozone and its so long its hard to position on the spring in the first place with out having something in the way. What am I missing? Tips? I'm almost ready to have someone do it for me.

 

Hey ---

You do NOT need to use spring compressors on the rear! Just drop the axle down far enough to stick the springs in w/o compressing them. Once they are in, jack the axle back up and attach the shocks. This is all done with the frame being supported with jack stands.

 

You might also want to disconnect the Anti-sway bar just in front of the rear axle, it's 2 bolts on each side and that will allow the axle to come down some more. Just did this 2 days ago, it's not too bad. If you can get a crowbar under the bottom of the spring, then you can just pop it right out.

 

Yeah, disconnect everything but the panhard bar. They should be able to fall out w/o problems.

 

Are you still messing around with this? What have you done so far?

 

I don't know about falling out, I couldn't get mine to just fall out. I had to use a compressor like you, the left side is the hardest because of the gas tank and very little room to work. The cone bumpstop should come out with the spring.

 

give us pics of the completed work!

 

Ditto on the compressor. I had to disconnect the swaybar endlink, and the bottom shock bolt. Make sure you watch the brake line because you will be able to rip it off if you just let everything fall. Put a jack under the diff. and lower it slowly. then repeat for the other side. Now, the stock spring just about fell out. However, putting the new longer ones in I did have to compress them a bit to make it easier.

 

With just disconnecting the sway bar and the lower end of the shock, I was able to lower each side enough to pull my 891's out and put my Downey's in.

 

You can do what I did, and NOT disconnect everything, just the lowing shock bolt and compress them about 2". Its a waste of time though.

 

first off. you are in the wrong section.

second if you're really having trouble getting the little springs out, OME's are going to be a bitch. there are plenty of instructions on the web.

what i did was disconnect the shocks, sway bar, panhard bar and some of the hard breakline mounts to be safe. then just lower the axle with a floor jack.

i had my neighbor push down on the side of the axle that i was working on and everthing worked out great.

***if your still having trouble after disconnecting everytning i mentioned then try undoing the upper control arms.

 

Good tips, but he's in the right section.