I've got these Ranchos I bought last summer but never installed for my '04 Ram 4x4. Being that they're just sitting in my garage and the weather is suppose to be nice this week, I think I'll give take a shot at installing them.

Can any one give me an over view of the process? Can it be done without removing the front tires or do they need to come off. Also, I noticed the upper mount on the Ram has like 3 or 4 bolts that looks like it needs to be removed.

Ok... Someone just please give me a quick overview like this:

1: remove tire
2: remove lower shock mounting bolt
3: remove upper shock mounting bolt
4: remove the 3 or 4 upper shock mount.
5: replace shock and do in reverse steps 4 - 1.

BTW, if the instructions are good, please let me know, else please post correct instructions.

Thanks!!

 

You don't have to remove the tires. Yes, the shock tower has to come off.

 

I'm going to keep up on this post. I just received my Rancho 9000's ($243.00 for 4 + free shipping) and want to install them in the next couple of weeks.

 

When I did mine it took 30 minutes for one shock second shock took less than 10 minutes,, and so on all the way around, watch out for that little doughnut thing on top of the front shocks and install new one same... rear shocks are too easy heavy duty floor jack you'll need two of them as the shocks like to expand for you and I am not that strong to compress them...

 

Ok, so the proceedure for the front is:

1 - unbolt shock tower
2 - unbolt shock from shock tower mount
3 - unbolt shock from lower mount

or should I unbolt the shock from the shock tower and lower mount before unbolting the shock tower?

Thanks!

 

Unbolt the shock from the shock tower first. I did it that with my 99 because after unbolting the the shock tower first I couldn't get the top bolt off. The shock tower just kept spinning around. I had to do my previous truck twice because the first set front shocks were bad. Second time doing it was easier.

 

Folks, I just did the passanger side and here's how it went.

1st, as suggested by Cayuser, I tried to unbolt the upper shock nut. It was a no go. It just spun.

2nd, I unbolted the upper shock mount. 15mm socket from under the hood for 2 of the 3 nuts. 3rd nut, I used a wrench from the wheel well.

3rd - I unbolted the lower shock with a 21mm socket.

4th - Removed shock from the top with mount attached.

5th - Used 8mm and a 18mm wrench to unbolt the shock from the mount. Lots of PB blaster was used.

When installing, I mounted the new shock to the mount then extened the shock. Then when I inserted the shock back in the coil, I used a flathead screwdriver to hold the bottom of the shock up to line up the lower mounting hole, to insert the bolt.

Once I have the lower mounting bolt done, it was just a matter of lineing up the 3 holes for the shock mount to the bolts and rebolting the mount.

The whole process took me about an hour because I couldn't get the shock off the upper mounting bracket.

BTW, here's what I used...

1/2" rachet with the following deep sockets: 21mm, 18mm and 15mm.
I also used 2 extensions. One 8inch and one 4 inch. If you don't have deep sockets, just use TWO 8inch extensions.

Wrenches: 8mm, 15mm, 18mm and TWO 19mm. The 8mm and 18mm was used to remove the stock shock's upper nut from the mounting bracket. 15mm for one of the shock mount bracket nuts and the TWO 19mm for the Rancho Shock's nut to mount to the mounting bracket.

A long flathead screwdriver was also a good idea. Once it was used to punch out the lower mounting bolt after the bolt was unscrewed. The 2nd use was to push the shock up to line the lower mounting bolt hole to get the bolt back in.

I hope this help with anyone else attempting this. As for technical level, any novice can do it! The hard part was getting the frozen nut off the upper factory shock!

I'm going back out to do the driver's side. I'm guessing it migh be a little harder to remove/insert the shocks because the brake fluid reservoir and the brake lines that run to it.

 

Did the driver's side and it's a PITA! The reason is because I had to remove the battery and also remove the shock mount before you can remove the shock. If you want to remove the shock with the mount still attached, you must remove the battery and the battery tray.

I first tried to removed the shock and upper shock mount as one unit. It was a NO GO. I then removed the battery and tried it again. Still a NO GO. Then I started to remove the battery tray until I found that it's not as simple as removing a few bolts.

Now I knew I had to remove the upper shock mount if I didn't want to remove the battery tray. I first tried it with the 18mm and 8mm wrench. I wouldn't budge, so I had to pull out the air tools.

Even with a air tools, it was not easy due to the frozen bolt. I did eventually get the mount off the shock, but I'm telling everyone now. If you're going to do this yourself at home, you better start hitting that upper nut with PB blaster now and make sure you have you it's really soaked in. If I were you, I'd soak the nut for at least 24 hours then hit it again and wait another 24 hours before trying.

That's about it.

 

Where did you find the 9000's for that price.

Tony

 

Same place I got mine http://www.samsrancho.com/index.html

 

Thank's for the link.

Tony