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Thread: Frankie's First Suspension Job

  1. #1

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    Smile 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:

    33788871712_c821cec2fc_k.jpg

    Front done:

    33863886252_ad53c6c0ca_k.jpg


    And a nice profile look

    33210875013_49d3b6b2df_k.jpg


    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.

    33102927574_2021855d74_k.jpg

    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.


    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..

  2. #2




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    to help with the rear bounce, remove the straight leaf on the bottom of the spring pack to eliminate the springboard effect - with the heavier leafs, you wouldn't need it for the load assist. Be sure to replace the lower control arm bushings and strut rod bushings with urethane, and the upper bushings are a shaft and endcap setup.
    Pennyman1
    The best Dodge that Dodge never made
    Living the D-50 lifestyle since 1980

  3. #3

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    One thing I forgot to mention, the rear leaf springs that I sourced have a parking brake clamp on the rear side of the axle rather than the front side. The parking brake does still work, but I'm going to need to fabricate a bracket at some point to hold that sucker in place.

  4. #4

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    Frankwrench, glad my post helped. Is it possible you can get the part number from your leaf spring guy? I put in some coil over rear shocks but it isn't much better than it was. I expect the leaf springs on it were not meant for the loads I haul. When you tear onto the front again think about the steering linkage too. I think I only reused one piece it was the long bar that goes between the pitman arm and the idler arm (I may have those part names wrong). If I had to do it over I might have look harder at the steering box. Even after the alignment the wheel has more play than I like and that play migrates and changes like an old 70's Detroit car.

  5. #5

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    When I beefed up the rear suspension on my fastback, it made a quantum leap of difference in handling. The rear end was bordering on uncomfortably firm but the improvement in turn in response was awesome. I used a set of leaf springs from a Galant wagon (Dodge Colt) and added urethane bushes - nut and bot swap that took a little over half an hour.
    The ass end was a bit high off the ground though!

  6. #6

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    Does it matter what year dodge colt? Do I need more than just the spring from the colt? How much stronger are they? I often put 1000-1500 lbs in the bed. What brand of urethane bushings did you get?
    Does anyone know if the suggested colt springs or if Rancho RS606 or the husky Spring (at the RA link) would be more help for load carrying? http://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/d...r+spring,15009

    Are the Timbren DVR050 any good? Before I did the front end and added the coil over shocks to the back it used to hit the stops every time I got a half yard of gravel. If they've recently sprayed it with water it still does. https://www.carid.com/timbren/suspen...pn-dvr050.html

  7. #7

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    Not sure if the year of manufacture is relevant. If you're looking for an upgrade on your truck, the wagon springs aren't going to cut it. Adding a helper leaf spring might be the ticket. The fastback I owned had a 2 leaf spring in the rear end (it was like riding on a rubber band) and it actually snapped the right side spring - my bet from the PO doing burn outs and beating on this poor thing. The wagon springs were 4 leaf and were considerably stiffer than the springs in my Lancer fastback. I took the axle shackles and the bottom plates as well. If my memory serves me well the only mod I had to perform was grind off 2 small locater discs that were tack welded onto the axles. I used that wagon to haul a whole lounge suite and regularly loaded it to the eyeballs and it never bottomed out or scraped. Unfortunately I don't recall the model of bushes I used but they were Nolathane branded. I guarantee it will never bottom out in a lightweight coupe unless you take it for some serious flying lessons.

    p.s. you could also swap the front sway bar from the wagon. They are hell thicker but you'll need to get the 'D' bushes and brackets to go with it. If you can find a wrecked wagon, compare it with your car.

  8. #8

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    i have no clue about crossover parts and such im trying to find parts for my 1994 max 2wd 4cyl . the whole truck is sitting so low i cant align it... getting uneven wear. i would like to restore to original maybe a touch taller ride height. found replacement leafs on rock but i can't find replacement coils for front. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

  9. #9


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    frankwrench or FrankenWrench LOL

    Thanks for sharing man..

  10. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by ace View Post
    i have no clue about crossover parts and such im trying to find parts for my 1994 max 2wd 4cyl . the whole truck is sitting so low i cant align it... getting uneven wear. i would like to restore to original maybe a touch taller ride height. found replacement leafs on rock but i can't find replacement coils for front. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
    Hi and welcome to mightyram. You won't need to source cross over parts to rectify your alignment problems. If you replace the severely lowered front coils for 2.5" lowered, it will correct your camber to 1.5" which is optimal for handling on these trucks. Don't forget these trucks were sold under a number of different model names and they share parts across years of manufacture (D-50/Ram 50/Mighty Max/Triton/L200)The PO may have done all sorts of things to the truck to get it low and some of the methods aren't a good idea, like removing bump stops completely or winding the the caster rods in til they over load the lower control arm bushes. I found stock height Moog springs on ebay for the Ram 50 as a starting point - https://www.ebay.com/itm/Moog-Front-...UAAOSwjrFb5gfB
    support the forum that supports you - join and donate to MightyRam50.Net today! donations unlock the edit function

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