Pulled the original shocks off the truck today and replaced them with Monroe Sensa-Tracs (yeah, they are not Bilsteins but the truck sees very little use). The Monroes had a buy 3 get one free deal so that was OK with me. The nearly 8 year old ones were pretty weak and crappy looking. Despite the way these shocks look, the rest of the underneath is in really pristine shape, looks like the previous owner at least made an effort to wash out the underneath occassionaly. Breaking loose those original bolts was not fun, gotta love impact wrenches. Also put new brake pads on the front and new drum shoes on the rear. Just like the shocks, the rear brakes were a bit*h to get apart. I'm suprised how low the rear shoes were with only 58K on the truck but it's all new now. While I had the front end apart I tried out the POR 15 for the first time on the front half of the truck. Wire-wheeled any rust I could find on the frame and suspension areas (really wasn't that much) and used their prep products. Turned out pretty nice. Test drive was a success and besides being filthy and sweaty I managed not to loose any skin or shed one drop of blood for a change...haha. Definately makes you appreciate why mechanics charge so much an hour.

Heres what the original shocks looks like...even with low miles they were pretty much goners, age takes its toll I guess...and also featured in this pic is old rusty, my ancient steel pipe/breaker bar adder-onner. It got a workout today.

 

Whoo, those were about as bad as mine. I had factory 2000 shocks on my 125k Ranger in the rust belt of ohio.

the rears were completely rusted through. no fluid, at all. just rods and holes.

the fronts were just as back and my passenger side fell apart into pieces when i removed it. nice.

after i replaced them i have a more comfortable ride, no vibrations (before, at 55+ the car literally was shaking itself apart), and it responds much better at all speeds. braking improved to since the whole truck doesn't drop all it's weight on bare steel in the front.

i was surprised at the difference.

in hind sight i should have waited until i lifted since i need to buy new shocks again for the lift. could have saved some cash but oh well.


what's with the leaf spring?

 

The leaf spring is from the '03 4x2 I used to have that I had lowered. I dug it out and used it as a practice part for the POR-15. I had a bunch of stuff from it still in the attic and was trying to see if I had anything worth saving or keeping for this truck. I do have an almost new set of tan/black '03 Ranger bucket seats up there that would fit in this one if I could find a center console. I had swapped the seats out of the other one for some leather Expo ones.

As for the shocks, they weren't rusted through (yet) but didn't have much "rebound" left in them. As you said, I took it on a short 5-mile or so drive and it does seem make a significant difference in the ride.

 

The Rangers ride like F-250s as it is, with bad shocks it is like riding in a Model T haha.


When you get all your parts swapped and set up the way you want to you should start a "cleaning out the garage" thread in the classifieds to sell your left overs and clean out your attic.

Be a Ranger brothers. Share your parts.

 

Don't worry, I will. I sold the majority of the other rangers parts when I put it back to mainly stock to trade it in 3 years ago.

 

The best part about replacing the shocks was it leveled out the rear of my truck. It was nearly 1" higher on the drivers side than the passenger side and I was planning on having to swap out leaf springs. Apparently one of them was either stuck or worn to a point that it was holding up one side of the truck. A few drives after the new ones were in and the rear is level. Imagine that.

 

Interesting. I was told shock don't affect ride height. I suppose if one was still working and one was out of fluid it would cause that.

 

I know. I was suprised also.