hotdram

It will be too soon.
I put on some new shocks yesterday and what a pain in the rear (and front) that is). Forgot how tight the front driver's side is to get to. I was removing some aftermarket ones from the front that were put in when I did my Skyjacker's 4 years ago). At the top of the rod, to keep it from spinning, there wasn't anything that a standard socket would fit onto . Had to grab it with a crescent wrench and spin the nut about 1/8 turn at a time. Took forever. If you do this, hit all the nuts with PB blaster and get a set of ratcheting wrenchs for the nuts on the front shocks. Had to take off the tower to get the new shock in. Once the new shock goes in, I had to cut the strap on it so I could put the washer and rubber piece on that goes on the bottom side of the bracket. The hard part is pushing the bracket back down to get the 3 nuts started on it (with all the brake lines there, it is hard to get leverage and push the new shock down). Also, the crush sleeve on the Bilstein's was a little wider than the bottom bracket, had to grind it down a bit. At least the rod on the new ones had a socket head cap screw to hold on to so the rod wouldn't spin. Passenger's side was much easier, just had to remove the air filter and again grind the crush sleeve.
Rear passenger side required me to drop the sway bar because the bottom bolt would not come out of with it in the way. The rear driver's side was a little pain in the butt because when I backed the bolt out of the top, when the flag nut rotated, it popped the end of the axle vent tube. Also had to drop the spare to do this side.
Overall, I'm glad its done and I don't want to to that in the near future.
This job was much easier on my 1/2 ton. I told my wife "I'll be out in the garage for 2 hours to do my shocks". Total time was about 5 hours.

~Rob

Valv

Holy cow, yesterday it took me 20 minutes to replace both my rear !!! Air wrench, BRRRRUUP off old, BRRRRUP up goes new one, repeat on other side, done.
Yes spare had to be lowered, put winch tube on BRRRRRUP down goes the tire.
KYB fit was perfect.

You've got to love power tools

crobtex

Huh! My last century truck must be different. I've change mine twice and didn't have problems and didn't drop are take anything loose.

You should have called me to come over to
supervise.....that is my speciality, ya know.

presovtr

I did a set on my Dads 03 a couple weeks ago and the yahoos that installed his 5th wheel rails welded a mounting bracket over the frame holes now that was a giant pain air tools and all!!

BigBlue

Yup. I know the feeling rob. Still didn't take me that long to do my buddy's bilstiens nor did it take that long to do mine.

HOHN

I feel the pain. When I did my shocks, I also installed longer springs (D25s) and that was a HUGE pain getting the front axle to droop low enough. I'm lucky the U-joint survived