So if Ranchos are lot stiffer i cant imagine reinstalling them with the leveling kit. The stock struts were hard enough.

 

it doesn't really have to do with how stiff the shock is in terms of difficulty of install. The coil spring is far more stiff than any shock or strut would ever be. The thing that makes it a PITA is the over the top strut spacer leveling kit (either PA, rough country, daystar, etc.) because this extends the effective length of that coil assembly and is hard to get that lower A-arm bolt in there. (at least it was damn near impossible for me. Let's just say I used a lot of leverage and developed a little rope pulley system to get it back together, haha!

 

yea it was the same for me. I have the daystar kit. It took me and my friend. I used a pry bar and he kicked it in place lol.

 

well, i just ordered the rear shocks, went with monroe. Can't decide if I want to do the fronts myself or pay to have it done. Looks pretty straight forward, but murphy lives in my house and i can't afford to be stuck if something goes wrong during installation. I know I'm lloking at spending probably twice as much to have them installed.

 

i went with the rancho and it is like driving a different truck. the struts are a pia. you will need a spring compressor. go to a parts store like napa, auto zone they should have a rental program. the advanced auto i went to was $50 but if you brought them back with no damage you got the money back. take the top control arm off(ball joint) then the sway bar end link. to get the strut out you need an open end wrench for the nut and a smaller open end for stud off the strut its self. i should have taken pics when i did mine but hind sight.

 

he is exacly right...i do everything my self and after i almost killed my self with a $hiTTY tool i rent nut on top was stripped seized ruster...after 2 hours using the wrong tools i end up bring it to the first shop open in weekend and they did it in 10 min!40$

 

How is the ride different with the aftermarket struts/shocks? Right now I feel every little bump in the road and it jiggles the trucks, it's very annoying. Hit one bump and you get three shakes. Does it smooth out the ride or just improve handling?

 

going to take it to a shop and just pay to have the fronts replaced with the Monroe's, at least it will match the back end. Cheapest I could find so far: $269.00 each, installed for the Monroe sensa-tracs.

 

If I was to do it all again I would buy the whole new separate strut assembly and build on it from there at your convenience , costs you a little more but not having your daily driver jacked up during this install process is a pain.. Cya Slick

PS..Buy sway bar links ahead of time from rockauto.com because you will need them

 

I went with the Ranchos and really like them. Removing/ installing the front shocks is often a huge pain in the *** and very dangerous. Both of my lower shock bolts took about 1.5 hours each to get out, and that was with access to an impact gun. You def want to bring your front shocks to a shop with a wall-mount spring compressor. Most portable compressors will be too large to fit between the coils of the springs. I ended up having to by new top strut mounts because my old ones had to be cut off. All worth it in the end though!