Rear Sag?

[HRTKD]

The shocks are relatively new in that while they're 6 years old they have less than 10,000 miles on them.

 

[feellnfroggy]

broke springs arent all that obvious. Look at your shackles they should both have hte same angle, on my truck one is angled forward and one is angles rearward. Thats how I know my spring is bad. sploder sprigns FTW!!!!

 

[strvger]

The shocks are relatively new in that while they're 6 years old they have less than 10,000 miles on them.

i can understand that. my truck had 37k original miles when i bought it. the valve seals were 25 years old (same age as the truck, 1983) and were dried out and falling apart in the valve train, blue smoke out the exhaust, etc. just saying it isn't always just about the miles really. once you replace the springs, might try the 'bounce test' and see just how well those shocks are doing for you.
just a thought.

 

[beyonder]

the simplest solution for you is to put in a set of coil over shocks. Should lift you back to a good height, I did this in a 90 ranger for the same problem.

 

[HRTKD]

This "fix" is still on my radar. I'm now looking at the Skyjacker leaf springs. I'm not sure which to get. FR34 or FR36? I want to keep the stock height in the rear and I'm willing to ditch the blocks. If I can get more travel out of the FR36 and it doesn't mess up my height that's what I would like to do. Good idea? Bad idea?

 

[HRTKD]

I decided to say f-it. I got some very good customer service directly from Deaver so I placed an order with them. The other guys never responded, though Duffy did but with a negative response. So Deavers it is. Hopefully the wife won't notice the cost but will notice the improved right (like that's going to happen).

 

[strvger]

i have a local spring shop that will sell me new replacement rear springs for $110 ea. think i'll be getting those before winter.

 

[HRTKD]

I'm planning to flip the shackle mount to fit the new Deaver F31 springs. I read the Tech Libary write-up that covers this and it looks relatively easy. I'm not sure if I'm going to remove the bed to do this or keep it on.

What should I do about shackles? Keep the original shackles, replace them with new OEM shackles or go with aftermarket? Camburg was mentioned and pictured in the Tech Library article but I can't seem to find those. Any suggestions?

 

[legoms013]

Not sure about the shackless, but the work will be ten times easier if you remove the bed (which isn't that hard, you just need a buddy to help move it aside).

 

[HRTKD]

New shackles and shackle mounts should arrive this week and I'll do the project this weekend. I got to thinking through the steps and came up with an issue. The OEM lift block between the axle and leaf spring has an extension on it that keeps the suspension from compressing too far. If I remove the lift block is there something I should put in its place to keep the suspension from compressing too far?

 

[HRTKD]

Install of the Deaver F31 leaf springs is complete! What a pain in the butt. It took me probably a good 10 hours and three trips to Ace Hardware.

Of the six bolts (3 each side) holding the leaf springs on only one came off with wrenches. The other five had to be cut off. The bolts had welded themselves to the bushings. I guess that is to be expected of a 20 year old vehicle.

After grinding off the rivets of the OEM bracket I installed new Dorman 722-010 Rear Brackets (mounts to the frame and holds the shackle) and the Dorman 722-001 Shackle Kit. I think the quality of the bolts that came with the rear bracket is so bad that it's unsafe. I bolted up three of these and the fourth one wouldn't tighten. It had destroyed the threads. I tried a different bolt/nut and it did the same thing. I started each nut by hand, spun it on a few turns and then used my impact wrench to finish it up. Normally my impact wrench won't tighten a nut to more than about 80 ft/lbs. These are labeled as grade 10. There is no way these nuts/bolts are grade 10. I bought a full set of replacement nuts/bolts from Ace Hardware. These really were grade 10 and tightened up quite nicely.

The OEM axle u-bolt plate (on top of the leaf springs) is too narrow for the Deavers and the Deaver u-bolts are larger (in diameter) than the OEM u-bolts and the centering pin on the Deavers is larger than the OEM centering pin. I had to drill out the u-bolt holes as well as the centering pin hole. I think I used a 29/32" drill bit for the u-bolt holes and the centering pin should probably have been a 3/4" but I only had something smaller so I made do.

I had to move the axle about 3/4" forward to get the leaf springs front eyelet to align with the front bracket. Going backwards 3/4" would worry me, I don't think forward is a big deal.

I did remove the bed and that made life much easier. The head of one of the bed bolts stripped so I ground off the head to get the bed off and then cut off the nut clip. Hopefully the local Ford dealer will sell me a bed bolt and clip. Taking the bed off made it possible for me to notice that my fuel filler hose is cracked. That's not going to be cheap.

After a drive around I retightened all the bolts again with a torque wrench. They needed it. According to Deaver the u-bolts are tightened to 95 ft/lbs. I greased the snot out of the new Deaver bushings and haven't heard any squeaks yet.

While the bed was off I took my 15 year old son (got his learners permit last week) for a drive and let him take the wheel in a parking lot. I showed him how to do a power-brake burnout. Initially it was just to show him that the brakes weren't as strong as the engine but with the reduced weight with bed off allowed to the tires to just spin. It was pretty cool to see a two-tire-fire from the back window. I didn't think my Ranger could do that!

Anyhow, the rear end is level now. I haven't drove around enough with the bed on to say if the ride quality has changed.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

New shackles and shackle mounts should arrive this week and I'll do the project this weekend. I got to thinking through the steps and came up with an issue. The OEM lift block between the axle and leaf spring has an extension on it that keeps the suspension from compressing too far. If I remove the lift block is there something I should put in its place to keep the suspension from compressing too far?

Usually the rubber bumpstop is moved down if there isn't a block with the tab on it in the mix.

 

[HRTKD]

Usually the rubber bumpstop is moved down if there isn't a block with the tab on it in the mix.

If I understand what you're saying then the bump stop will contact the axle directly then. I think I see that in the parts diagram for a non-4x4 rear end. I'm going to have to look at the bump stop to see how much it sticks down. Maybe it won't need to be changed?