Installing Shocks Front and Rear on this Dodge RAM 2500

[Smithers]

I had scored some free shocks the other week so I thought I should try and install them on the back of my Dodge. The truck made all sorts of noise from the suspension no matter how slow I drove the thing. I knew the shocks were completely blown out but I though it would cost a lot to fix so I procrastinated. So I took the part number for the shocks to Napa to get the specs on how long the extended length was and how short the compressed length was. They told me that they wouldn't work on my truck but I insisted they print out the measurements so I could list them for sale online. They gave me the measurements finally and what do you know? The only difference between rear shocks on a 1995 Dodge and the same era GMC/Chevy is only .5" in compression stroke. I put them under the back of my truck and they work just prefect.

To sum it up here real quick installing shocks on these Dodge trucks is super easy and even easier on the 2WD like mine. Putting a whole set on a mid-90's Dodge 2500 took me about 1.5 hours combined and that's with some welding repair on the front because of how worn the mounting locations were on each side. This is easy stuff folks. Here are some pictures and descriptions of what I did.

This pictures shows you exactly why you want to replace your shocks every now and then if you drive a lot. They just don't last forever but the good news is that they are cheap. To replace any of the shocks on this truck was only $50. I scored a pair of Napa 60 shocks that happened to fit on the back and for the front I just went down to Carquest and picked up a pair of KYB shocks for around $90 for the pair. There are lots of brands of shocks out there but I knew ANYTHING would be better than what I had so I just wanted to slap some on there for now. I would really like to lift the front a little bit so I didn't want to spend too much money on something that would just be changed out in the near future. Here you can see that these front shocks don't look too junky but when you take them off and compress them you can see that they don't have any gas left in them and they just aren't functioning correctly.

[Smithers]

I didn't even take any pictures of the installation of the rear shocks. They are so easy to replace that there was no need to show it. You just simply unbolt them and put the new ones back in their place. The front is a little different. You need to get the top nut off the shock shaft so that when you lift the front end up off the ground the shock will drop right out when you remove the bottom bolt. Simple.

[Smithers]

Now this particular truck has 340K miles on it so things don't go so smoothly as I would hope. The reason this truck made so much noise while driving was that the top of the shock was really loose. This caused the shock to go up and down causing the threaded portion of the shock shaft to file away at the steel shock mount. Have a look below and you can see that instead of a round hole for the shock there is almost a figure 8 shape from the shock filing it's way through the steel.

[Smithers]

To remedy this situation you simple clean the surrounding area on the mount and weld a flat washer to it. This makes a nice hole to retain the shock shaft again when you bolt it down. Pretty nifty and it doesn't take very long at all.




And for the other side as well. It's a little tricky to weld in this area but you can do it without too much trouble. I couldn't get my welding helmet in close enough to be effective so I did it by closing my eyes completely. If you take the time to remove the front tires you could do it with a welding helmet on.

[Smithers]

I don't have to tell anyone how much better this truck rides after the installation of a new set of shocks. I can't believe I even drove it around like it was before. I just started driving this truck around not too long ago so I just didn't know any better.