2nd Gen Non-Engine/Transmission 98 clunking in rear suspension

[rkaspar]

My 98 long box ex cab, has a fairly loud clunk somewhere in rear suspension. I trap and hit dirt roads and field roads at a pretty good clip, but ill hear and feel it even on concreat. It seems worse with a little weight in it. Have checked rear tire and exaust, nothing loose there. I noticed the top set of spring that there isnt much travel till they hit the bump stop, am i just bottoming out on the bump stop?. The truck has always done this since i bought it in June. I dont see anything noticably loose on suspension. It does have sway bars too, could they be the cuprit? Thanks in advance

 

[FourBarR]

helper springs hitting stop. do you have the rubber things over the stops? if not there should be. there is a thing that plumbers use that works. dont remember what its called. someone will come on and tell you what their called.

 

[rkaspar]

The overload springs look stock to me, are they factory or add on? thanks

 

[rkaspar]

Can someone tell me what they use for bumper stop cusions to lesson the banging in the rear?

 

[TMills]

I had a clunking and it was caused by a worn bushing in the lower shock mount. The only way I found it was by having someone jump up and down on the truck while I listened and tried to find the sound.

 

[AMink]

I have this on my 97. It's the overload springs bumping. When I load up, it goes away. I have a 500# shell on my truck; it puts it pretty close to the stops. I have over 100k on the truck and it doesn't seem to be hurting anything.

 

[kparker]

I went through the same ordeal with my 96 about a year ago. I thought I was slamming my overloads onto the stops, but then it kept doing it when the springs were loaded to the point that they were resting on the overload stops. Terrible sound when off roading. What I discovered was a blown out front eye bushing on the leaf spring. Not a trivial repair since I had to drop the fuel tank, and the part was next to impossible to locate. I ended up installing urethane ones that were designed for a 1/2 ton(narrower spring), and installing a spacer between the two. Installing KORE minipacks and junking the overloads made a giant difference in ride quality as well. No more squeaking and slamming those damn overloads.

 

[AMink]

What are the KORE "minis"? I've been on their site, but didn't see any pics except for the front suspension.

 

[TFabian]

I went through the same ordeal with my 96 about a year ago. I thought I was slamming my overloads onto the stops, but then it kept doing it when the springs were loaded to the point that they were resting on the overload stops. Terrible sound when off roading. What I discovered was a blown out front eye bushing on the leaf spring. Not a trivial repair since I had to drop the fuel tank, and the part was next to impossible to locate. I ended up installing urethane ones that were designed for a 1/2 ton(narrower spring), and installing a spacer between the two. Installing KORE minipacks and junking the overloads made a giant difference in ride quality as well. No more squeaking and slamming those damn overloads.

Do you remember where you got the bushings? Mine are getting pretty bad from driving on dirt roads everyday. The bushings are supposedly not replaceable on these. At least I haven't been able to find a source. Any details would be appreciated.

 

[kparker]

The minipack is a lower springpack added to the stock Dodge leafpack. I removed the upper overload spring, and the lower thick leaf that will never bend, and then installed the minipack. I have a 1000# camper and sometimes load it up with another 750 pounds or so, and the minipack arrangement still works better than it did stock. When unloaded, it feels just as soft as the stock arrangement, but it never has that "bottoming" out feeling you get when you first hit the stock overloads. It is a well thought out modification.

 

[kparker]

I was amazed at the unavailability of those damn bushings. I wanted to replace them with stock rubber ones. Dodge doesn't have them, I tried matching other ones and nothing worked. No leaf spring manufacturers I contacted had them either. What I did find, was that Energy Suspension makes bushings for the 1/2 ton models. They are the same diameter, but they are not quite long enough. The 1/2 ton leaf pack must be about a 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch narrower than our springs, because that is about the gap I had remaining. I cut up another urethane one and wedged it in between the two new ones. Probably would have been fine without it, but what the hell, I had some extra meterial. I have about 1500 miles of good, hard off road miles on them so far with no problems, not to mention no horrifying clanking sound with each bump in the road. I hope this info helped.

 

[AMink]

kparker- what shocks do you have on your rear axle? Are they Bilsteins that come with the minipacks or did you put them in seperately? Thanks

 

[kparker]

Those are the Fox shocks that come with the KORE Race system. They work incredibly well. For the kind of roads I pound the truck through, they were well worth the price. The Bilstein system is substantially cheaper, and probably more than adequate for most general on/off road use. I bought a whole system(front and rear), but I imagine they will sell the rear set-up by itself. Give them a call if you are interested, they seem to be very nice people to deal with.



(760)749-8687 KORE