4 Attachment(s)
Frankie's First Suspension Job
I enjoy bouncing around in an old truck as much as the next guy, but the suspension on my 1984 Ram 50 Sport had less flex than a cinder block. The rear leaf springs were toasted, and every shock on the truck might as well have been ornamental.
After saving my pennies for a little while, I was able to purchase some new parts:
- Rear leaf springs (part no. MB242814)
- Rear shocks (part no. KYB KG5434)
- Energy Suspension Polyurethane rear spring bushings
- Front shocks (part no. KYB KG5433)
- Front coils (part unknown, they're coils)
First, the finished product. Rear done:
Attachment 18737
Front done:
Attachment 18738
And a nice profile look
Attachment 18739
Now the details. This was quite the challenge, having never done suspension work and also not having much adult supervision during the process. :)
Rear Suspension
Jacking up the rear end, blocking it off, and removing the wheels went fine. On a recommendation from a friend I picked up an 18" steel pipe nipple from Home Depot before starting the work, and used that as a breaker bar around my heavy-duty 1/2" ratchet. This was very helpful for the rear shocks which were stuck on pretty firmly. I suppose before Loctite was invented, auto manufacturers sealed nuts with a nice layer of rust. Removing the rear suspension was far more time consuming than I had anticipated.
Since I was doing the job alone, it took about three hours to get the shocks and leafs all pried loose. Without the 18" steel pipe and my trusty crow bar, I would have never been able to separate the front or rear pins from horrid mess that were once called "bushings," which over the years appeared to have melted and reformed dozens of times.
Now, I couldn't find any suitable stock leaf springs, so the suspension shop here in town found some heavier duty ones, which stiffened the ride up a bit more than I anticipated without a load in the bed, but they're still miles ahead of what was there before.
Attachment 18740
I cannot stress how garbage the old leafs and shocks were. The shocks I could push in with two fingers, the leafs I could put a hand-compress. Absolute. Garbage.
Installing the new leaf springs and bushings was hard. If you're setting out to do something like this, you'll need some tools that I didn't expect to need:
- A good brass square-ish hammer
- A few heavy-duty C-clamps
- Your trusty steel pipe
- No fear of wailing on some metal to get things to squeeze in.
The spring shop pushed the bushings into the leaf springs already, so I only had the frame bushings loose. A nice gesture, but it made squeezing the front part of the spring into the saddle/frame a little tricky. The inner flange on the saddle is a little bit longer than the outer flange, which gives you some breathing room to squeeze the spring in a little bit, after which your trusty hammer should be used gratuitously to get the bastard in the slot all the way. Once the bushing is flush with the hole, the lubing the front pin and sliding it in is no big deal.
The rear bushings required equal parts steel pipe, C-clamping, and perspiration to get everything squeezed in properly. The first rear pin my friend and I put in, we realized after it was already most of the way in, that we put it in upside down. Ooops. The steel pipe made prying the pin back out relatively easy, then back to clamping and sweating.
Compared to the leaf springs, the shocks went on without any problem whatsoever. I cut the wrapper tape on the shock, let it expand, then jacked the rear axle into place so the pins lined up perfectly with the extended shock.
After three hours on the leaf springs, the shocks went in within 30 minutes. :bang:
Front suspension
Since we used up all my friends time on the rear suspension, I had to do the front suspension solo. The front suspension was an epic pain in ass since practically everything has to be removed in order to get the lower control arm free to replace the coil. I wish I would have known I needed the following before I got started:
- A couple steel brushes to remove 30 years of road grease. Gunked up one really fast
- Tie-rod puller
- A couple 14mm wrenches (my wrench set skips 14mm, never needed it, and a lot of times on the front suspension I needed two)
- Disc brake piston compressor
I spent a few days after work getting this done and it was just a tedious pain. If you have a decent tie-rod puller, you can use it for the tie-rod and each ball joint of the knuckle. After installing the coil and shock on the front-right, I cheated on the front-left and only removed the knuckle from the bottom joint, since I just needed the lower control arm to swing free to get the new coil in.
The coils I purchased were a bit shorter (~1cm) than the original coils, and the shock absorbers were a bit longer than the originals too. To remedy this I used the floor jack to provide some upward pressure while I lined up the bolts and tightened them up. Since I don't have a lift in my garage, this resulted in lots of crawling around on the ground, and tons of dirt in my hair. Tip: thoroughly sweep the drive-way before doing suspension work!
The front shocks, just like the rear ones could be compressed without practically any pressure. Absolute. Garbage.
During the course of re-assembly I got stuck on reattaching the brake caliper assembly, and made the exact same mistake that 85Ram50 made in this thread: http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin...2449#post52449, so many thanks to him for pointing out the fix, with pictures!
Final Thoughts
The entire job would have gone much faster with a helper/assistant at every step of the way. The payoff was worth it however, the stiffer rear-end does give me some bouncing around with the bigger bumps but responsiveness to the imperfections of the road surface is fantastic. The rear end sits up about 4-5 inches higher, which restores the nice downward back-to-front slope that a truck should have. The ride is definitely more comfortable too.
Unfortunately the job isn't over just yet! I took it in to the suspension shop to get aligned this morning, and during the inspection they discovered that the lower ball joints are lose, and the upper control arm bushings are almost disintegrated. Absolute. Garbage. So once my muscles heal up a bit, and I get some new parts, the front assembly is all coming off again for some new fancy poly bushings, and some new fancy ball joints.
And the road goes on..
