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Lifted the front, questions on shocks and other stuff

1K views 2 replies 2 participants last post by  Aaron K. 
#1 ·
I have a hand-me-down 89 W100 that my dad used as a work truck for a good 15 years. The front leaf springs on it have been needing replacement for a long time. The passenger side had no arch left and the drivers side had negative arch. I got some replacement leaf springs from a truck at the junkyard a few months back and finally got around to putting them on. They went on without too much of a fight and pretty much leveled it out, but I have two issues. Keep in mind I'm a truck suspension newbie :)

First issue is the front shocks. It appears they are too short and top out and make a loud thud on big bumps. I know the best thing to do is get new longer shocks, but I'm trying to do this on the cheap. I looked around the net briefly and it looks like a set of new shocks is gonna run me about $100 which is more than I wanna spend. The truck is only for Home Depot runs and hauling stuff every now and then....I think I put 400 miles on it last year. I'm wondering if I can drop the shock mount an inch or so and be OK? I'm thinking the shocks will still be to short, but tell me what you guys think...

Driver Side:


Passenger Side:


I dunno the total height difference from stock. The truck had some added suspension at one point, my dad said he had it beefed up to support additional weight he was gonna be carrying around. However I dont know how much or anything, I'm almost thinking that was only done in the rear.

If I gotta get shocks, where can I get some cheap ones that will work?

The second issue is that the drivers side of the truck sits a little bit lower than the passenger side. You may have noticed the difference in location of the shock bolts in relation to the top of the shocks in the pics above. Its 1/2-1 inch difference, not much, but enough to notice and annoy me. It was like that before I swapped leaf springs and I figured thats was the cause since the drivers side leaf spring sagged a bit more than the passenger side. What else in the suspension could be causing this since the leaf springs are new? I was thinking it could be the body mounts (are those metal or rubber/urethane anyway?) until I noticed the difference with the shocks.

You can only really see it in the pic of the front of the truck below, but its lower front and rear on the drivers side.









Sorry for the long post, and thanks for any help!

Aaron
 
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