JOE M

Funny, I was thinking the same thing. His front end looks like it never left the factory.

rockcrawler304

I will admit living in the desert DOES have it's advantages of no rust..... ever!!

sdmark

I changed out my shocks a few months back. My issue was the shock tower bolts just spun in place. I had to compress the spring to get at the bottoms so I could put a wrench on them. It works great now that they are tacked in place

rockcrawler304

All of them? They weren't tacked already?

canoeontop

Just finished installing yesterday. One thing of note. With the tower still on the shock on the passenger side front, I couldn't get the lower bolt out. After reading some of the horror stories here, I was afraid I had spun the capture nut. Turns out, after I got the tower off and took the weight off, I could wiggle the shock around and slid a piece of flat steel down beside the shock and pushed the bolt out to where I could get ahold of it. The nut was, thankfully, still in place.
That bolt is hard to get at and with the weight of the shock and the tower, the bolt was bound up just enough I couldn't get it out.

rockcrawler304

Thanks for adding your experience!

luckyrxc

First, I want to thank you all for this forum. It has been very helpful to me as I searched for and purchased an '06 Mega Cab, 4x4, Cummins with 86K miles.
And thank you for this thread. The shocks were original stock and had to go. The steering damper was dripping like the transfer case on my old Jeep.
I purchased Rancho RS9000XL shocks and an RS5000 steering damper, as my truck is stock height.
A few notes from my shock swap:
I hosed the nuts with PJ Blaster a couple days before I did the work. I'm not sure if this was necessary since I live in Idaho and nothing was rusted. Of course it meant I had to clean the hardware well so the new blue locktite would set up.

The rears were simple. Though I will note that I removed one screw on the driver side rear inner wheel well plastic fender to expose the upper shock bolt. I did the rears with the tires on the ground. Simple and easy (though I did put jack stands under the rear for precaution since I was under there). I also cranked down and removed the spare tire to make more room around the upper shock bolts.

The fronts were also straight forward. I set the frame on jack stands and removed the front wheels. I was able to remove the outside and the rear shock tower nuts with a box end wrench from the wheel well.
I found that an air ratchet did not turn fast enough to remove the upper shock nut. It just spun the shock shaft. But, the 3/8" drive impact had plenty of torque and speed to spin the nut off without my having to hold the shaft from rotating.
I had plenty of room to lift out the passenger side shock tower bracket with the shock.
On the driver side front, I was able to lift the shock tower bracket off the shock and just move it towards the engine and out of the way. Then the shock just lifted out. The new shock slipped right in and reassembled in the reverse fashion. I did not have to remove batteries, air filter, etc. The only disassembly I did was to remove the front wheels with jack stands under the frame so the front suspension was not compressed. Removing the wheels makes this a breeze by providing lots of working space.

The steering damper was also easy. Nothing noteworthy here except perhaps worth mentioning that one end of the stabilizer has a tapered bolt that appreciated the help of the ball peen hammer to persuade it's removal.

Total job time was about 3 hours, including a couple phone call and email breaks.

I'll also mention that I chose to orient the shock adjustment ***** facing the axles. This makes them more difficult to reach but they are protected from any underside debris or bumps, but I can still reach them.
Thanks again for this thread. Much appreciated!

'06, 3500, SLT, SRW, Mega Cab, Auto Trans, CTD

EDR

Thanks for posting.

I'll be using your write up when I replace the shocks on my '06 this Spring. I've got a new 3/8" drive impact wrench so I should be set.

Good luck and enjoy your new truck!

luckyrxc

My pleasure. And thanks, love this truck.

rockcrawler304

One tip I have used for many years for the spinning shaft is to use my needle nose vise grips and put a piece of 3/8 fuel line over each side and clamp them on as tight as I can. This will "Usually" allow the impact to crack the nut loose and spin it right off.

dodj

I live in the salt/rust area and thought I'd add that it helps to hit the exposed threads of bolts etc with a wire brush/dremel w/wire wheel before you try to remove the nuts. Makes removal easier IMO.

rockcrawler304

dodj

Thought I should add to the thread that I needed to remove the driver's side battery. Because the nut on the shock shaft would not release, I had to remove the shock with the tripod attached. I could not work the shock/tripod out with the battery in place. The master cylinder and brake lines made it too tight. Once the battery was removed, it was possible to work the shock/tripod assy out.

stock03

Just installed all 4 shocks, thanks to the previous posts. However, I removed both batteries, which I think helps.

My truck rides much better on the highway now.

rockcrawler304

Great to hear!!