2nd Gen Non-Engine/Transmission Verify - Front Bilstein Assembly

[rblomquist]

Just got a new set of Bilstein's for the front end in today & since I'm off on vacation I figured I'd slap em in.



Well since the pass side is the easy side I tore into it and got to the point where I had tossed the stock unit and dropped the new shock in. When I started to put the old hardware on the new shock I realized the stem on the Bilstein was a smaller diameter than the stem on the OEM shock and thus wouldn't work with the old rubber bumpers/caps So after scratching my head for a while I opened up the other box and find a ziploc baggy in there with a new rubber bumper, a big flat washer, a cap washer, and a spacer to make the new shaft fit in the tower. Yep, that's right, after making a call to ORW they said I should've got a baggy of parts with each shock



Since the parts I did get with the one shock are a lot different looking than the OEM stuff I was hoping someone could verify I put them in the right order as the directions that come with the shocks are confusing. Here's how I put the stuff together (from bottom of shock stem to the top):



Dropped the Big Flat Washer on the stem



Pushed the Rubber Bushing up through shock tower w/metal spacer inside



Placed the tower assembly over the stem



Dropped the Gold cap over the top of the rubber sticking up through the shock tower



Tightened down the Nyloc nut until it bottomed out on stem.





I guess the good news is I hadn't taken apart both front shocks before realizing I only had half the parts It's probably gonna be weird driving around for a couple of days with 1 OEM shock and 3 Bilsteins (I did the rears last week)... ... ... ... ... ... .



Thanks,



Rich

 

[TravisG]

Yep

Yep, that sounds good to me. A lot of people say to tighten them down until the nut bottoms out on the metal spacer, but I did that and busted a bushing, I am waiting on a new set right now. It might have been something I did but I am not sure the guyz from ORW say to only tighten them down a little bit. I wish I could speak German so I could read the direction they send.

 

[Diesel Gunner]

Tighten the locknuts down until they contact the inner sleeve. I didn't and my truck destroyed the Bilstien bushings. Overtightening might destroy the inner sleeve, so don't gorilla the lock nuts.



I am now using Rancho upper bushings and they work great. I think that the poly bushings may outlast the Bilstein units. I know that they outlasted the Rancho shocks that I had on the old Ford!

 

[Rogue Ram]

Welcome to my former nightmare!!! At least you had parts included with one shock! Do a search on this, you'll find my thread.



Shock, big washer, stem up through tower, through the rubber bushing with sleeve inside it, then washer and nut. Tighten until it bottoms on top of the sleeve.



If you (like I did) mistakenly use no sleeve and OEM bushings, they'll be destroyed in days.



RR

 

[rblomquist]

Originally posted by Rogue Ram

If you (like I did) mistakenly use no sleeve and OEM bushings, they'll be destroyed in days.

RR

OUCH! No, fortunately I realized real quick the old stuff wouldn't work with the new stuff. I thing I noticed with the 1 set of new hardware was the top of the stem floats around on top of the shock tower when I pushed down on the truck bumper. Maybe the OEM setup does this as well but with the big metal top cap on the OEMs you can't see any movement.



The guy I spoke with at ORW said they've been having that problem more and more lately (not having the parts in all the shock boxes). They've been real nice with me but you'd think if they new about this problem they'd have someone double checking the boxes before sending them out. I'd be really ticked off if I had destroyed the OEM shocks taking them out then realized I couldn't put the new ones in.

 

[DavidC]

I believe eshocks.com has installation instructions online. They do show running the nuts all the way down.

http://www.eshocks.com/Mounting.asp



Dave