re how hard to change springs on f truck bottom line i did it and it worked some tips and techniques are included here in article c zzpn ax constellation ecn uoknor edu callison uokmax ecn uoknor edu james p callison writes in article apr michael apple com ems michael apple com e michael smith writes does it take any peculiar tools to remove the rear springs from a ford f truck this is a x with leaf springs front and rear so with a big socket and an air wrench and a floor jack and a hydrolic bottle jack can i do this at home i found that i needed some smaller sockets to undo the shocks and a can of wd helped the sockets needed were metric exact fit but i was able to use some sae sockets and are rather close to and mm it can be fun having a canadian ford i m pictureing this undo u bolts put a bottle jack on the axle and raise the bed frame to take stress off of the leaf spring undo the end bolts bushings drop the spring turn the bottom leaf re connect the spring bolts sounds about right didn t have to undo the end bolts bushings just the u bolts on each side and the shock absorber jacking up the frame some more had to put the spare tire on the garage floor and put a wooden platform on top of that to get the floor jack high enough to raise the frame i t one talll truck lifted the spring free of the axel taking out the block gave me enough room to undo the pin holding the spring pack together the spring pack was held together with a nut on top and a round head on the other end no wrench head vice grips worked fine i soaked the nut with wd and it came right off flipped the bottom spring and then is this a nightmare waiting to happen or an easy though physically demanding thing to do well it s easier than doing a decent trigger job on a a ok well maybe it s not that easy but it s not terribly difficult i donno i m a little more sore today than after working on a a a foot pipe cheater was a real help torque spec for the u bolt nuts is to ft lbs a a doesn t have that kind of torque spec it was a challenge to get the pack bolt back in the spring pack squeeze pack with two hands hold bolt with third put nut on with fourth while picking up wrench and vice grips with fifth and sixth hands i used some string to tie the pack together while holding the pin in for alignment then i could let go to get the nut wrench vice grips getting the pin back lined up with the lift block was a challenge too until i discovered that the axel had tilted and or rolled forward one the drivers side a bottle jack under the front of the differential tilted it back in line enough for the pin head to drop into the right hole on the passenger side i had to wrestle the wheel into rolling forward about inch to get things to line up spent more than an hour working on getting the pin head into the hole in the lift block with levers and ropes and impliments of distruction before i took a break and thought about why it wasn t lined up anymore since it had been lined up before and i didn t move it something else must have hmmm axle no longer constrained not to move hmmm move it back hmmm after that it was all much easier to close up btw the ride is now softer but not quite as soft as i was hoping for at least it now sits level e michael smith ems apple com whatever you can do or dream you can begin it boldness has genius power and magic in it goethe i am not responsible nor is anyone else everything is disclaimed
