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Bilsteins on an F150

mesha

mesha

By endurance we conquer
Location
A.F.
I have a friend putting them on his dodge right now too. No tips or tricks from me, just uselessness.
 
DAA

DAA

Well-Known Member
Supporting Member
Location
West Bountiful, UT
I put them on my Ram 1500, but no tips or tricks from me either. I don't remember anything about it, really. Just put them on, was all.

- DAA
 
frieed

frieed

Jeepless in Draper
Supporting Member
Location
Draper, UT
yes, the coil perch is on the body of the shock itself, er, which means its a coilover and not separately mounted. You have to disassemble to re-use the coil.
 
BCGPER

BCGPER

Starting Another Thread
Location
Sunny Arizona
I've done it twice on my 150. The first time I wrestled with my spring compressors. The second time I dropped the entire lower control arm of. Mucho easier and less chance of killing yourself.
 
BCGPER

BCGPER

Starting Another Thread
Location
Sunny Arizona
I couldn't tell you if there are any videos around, I really didn't look. It's pretty simple though. One piece of advise, knock your tie rod off before dropping the control arm. They're kind of a pain to remove with the arm loose (don't ask how I know). And if you've ever thought of leveling it, now's the time since you'll need an alignment anyway.
 
frieed

frieed

Jeepless in Draper
Supporting Member
Location
Draper, UT
They are on !!!!!
Thanks so much to KevinB.

Lessons learned:
  • On an f150 (mines a 2013), most of the nuts on a ball joint linkages (upper ball joint, torsion bar, etc) are secured with red locktite. It will stop the nut from coming off. Warm that bad boy up with a propane torch. you will see the thread locker ooze out of the nut when it is ready.
  • Do not bang the ball joint stem socket to release the ball joint threaded end until you have completely removed the nut (you can put it back on to support the control arm before you do.
  • The spring compressors you can get from AutoZone and others are woefully inadequate for a spring this size. We watched the threaded bars on the compressor bend into a c shape. Very sketchy. At about the same time Kevin and I decided it was not a good day to die and to pay a shop to do it.
  • We tried Les Schwab and Firestone but neither would do it with customer supplied parts. Kudos to McNeils in Sandy for doing it for us. I will take the truck to them on Monday to do the alignment.
  • We had a slight mixup on where I wanted the spring perches to be (I wanted a 2" lift to level the front end and had them set up for that, but they changed them back to stock height) but they fixed it up with no questions (Kevin says it an honest mistake since I look like a stock kind of guy).
  • The new shock/coilover combo went in with no issues. We were concerned that because we were adding 2" lift that the coilover/shock combo would be longer but the shock limits the overall length with the new spring perch just adding pre-load to the coil to supply the lift.
  • Bolt the top bolts of the shock cap first but don't do the bottom yet. Keeping it loose will provide mobility in the lower control arm to get the torsion bar ball joint tails into their sockets.
  • Get the bolts on the torsion bars started on both sides, then put the bolts through the bottom end of the struts.
  • The ball joint tails will want to spin when you put the nuts back on. If they are stiff enough in their sockets an impact wrench will get the nuts on far enough to put a wrench on the tail (which has a hex shape) and you can finish tightening the nut with a normal wrench while you hold the tail still. If not, you can get a light grip on the ball joint tail with vice grips between the rubber boot and the socket while you turn the nut until enough of the tail is exposed to get a wrench on the hex end.
  • The nut on top of the shock is recessed into a double walled cap that compresses the coil so you can't get to it with a 19mm wrench. What you need is a pass-through socket and ratchet so you can still access the 6mm socket in the end of the shaft that holds the shaft still while you tighten the nut. 19mm is about .002" smaller than 3/4" and 3/4" spark plug sockets have flats for a wrench.. a bit awkward, but problem solved.
Oh, and to the untrained chimp at discount tire that installed the lug nuts with all the force your industrial impact wrench could bring to bear, a swift but solid kick to the nads...
It took this 200lb guy jumping on a 2ft breaker bar to get those bad boys loose again since my wimpy 550 ft-lb impact wrench wouldn't budge them.
 
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