Follow up: A Shocking Turn of Events

[Jimal]

As a follow up to my post asking about shock, I seem to have found my solutions. I thought I would share them in case anyone else has this question... or perhaps to serve as a warning for others.

FRONTS
I went to NAPA and they came up with a pair of Rancho RS5151 shocks. Picked up some Grade 8 hardware from Home Depot and the fronts popped right in.





REARS
Despite measuring the one remaining shock that was half attached to the truck, I ended up with the wrong rears from NAPA (right length, wrong eye size), I used the Rancho specs that were posted here (thanks BHC41051!) and found that the RS5143 was close enough on the compression and extension and had the 3/4" eyelets. Home Depot doesn't have anything that big, so I visited McMaster-Carr's website for some Grade 8G goodness. Bolts and shocks arrived today and I was able to mock one up.









As you can see, the shock fits, but I'll need to do a couple things before I can tighten everything up. For starters, I ordered 6 1/2" bolts for the top and they are too short. I'll have to see what the next length up is. On the bottom the bolts are long enough, but I'll need to cut a flat into the washers in order to get them to sit flush. To address the bushing issue and to be able to tighten things up properly, I just ordered a couple packages of the Rancho RS984 shock bushings. The are the urethane version of the bushings that come on the RS5143, and more importantly have a metal sleeve that I can use on the rubber bushings.

I love this stuff.

Just a few more things to do out of dozens before this thing hits the road again.

[americanmusc1e]

Just a thought,

I get my bolts from Tractor Supply Company. They sell them by the pound and they are freakin cheap for grade5/grade8 stuff. They also seem to stock more sizes than any Lowes/HomeDepot I've ever been to.

[Jimal]

Originally Posted by americanmusc1e

Just a thought,

I get my bolts from Tractor Supply Company. They sell them by the pound and they are freakin cheap for grade5/grade8 stuff. They also seem to stock more sizes than any Lowes/HomeDepot I've ever been to.

That is what one of my friends mentioned when I told them what I did. We have a Tractor Supply that I drive past to get to Home Depot. For whatever reason I just didn't think of Tractor Supply. Sometimes I go off on tangents and make things harder than they need to be.

[burnin oil]

I buy alot of bolts at tractor supply also. If you want cheap bolts look around for a store in your area that sells bolts in 50lb boxes. Probably cost the same as 5 or 10 lbs of bolts from TS.

[Jimal]

The fronts are all tightened up and the rears are getting close. The longer bolts came in from McMaster-Carr. They look at little too long, but I am going to address that with a spacer. My idea for the sleeves from the Rancho bushings backfired because the bushing had a 3/4" diameter, the sleeves were 5/8". So now I've ordered up some stock and I'm going to make my own sleeves and spacers. Update soon.

[Jimal]

Here's my update. I bought some .049" wall, .75" ID tubing online, cut it to length, and created my own shock bushing sleeves. Lubed them up and pressed them into the bushings on either end.



I had the bottom mounts figured out earlier, so today I tackled the tops. I made a couple .75" spacers out of 1.5" OD, .75" ID stock and slid them onto the bolts before the washers and the upper shock eyes with their new sleeves. Tightned up everything nicely nicely and this is the result:



And this is the finished product:



Check suspension off the punch list. Next up? Brakes. Wheels cylinders should be here tomorrow.