CoWillie

I've seen it mentioned on the site several times about swapping f250 front springs onto an f150 in order to level it up and possibly improve ride/handling. At 250k+ miles it's time to freshen up the looks and ride on my '95 4x4. My questions for those that have done it....
*Did you buy new springs or did you go the second hand route at the junk yard?

*Is the swap hard to do?

*What about a link to an instruction video?

I also plan on upgrading to some aftermarket shocks. Any suggestions?

I appreciate any help.

choate

The springs are cheap. Just buy new ones. Check amazon. I did not do the install myself b/c I live in a condo and there is no room to do it here but it's not that hard. A shop would do it for probably $100.00 Don't forget an alignment. As far as shocks go, not educated on that but OEM would be fine or something like a Bilstein

clarkbre

As far as price goes, Jegs.com has the Moog coils for $67.99 a pair with free shipping. For that price, its hard to justify going used.


I will be putting the Moog cc824's on my pick up today and report back on how it went. As far as shocks go, it looks like stock size shocks will work; however, broncograveyard.com has some shocks suited for our vehicles with a 2" lift.




Also, here's a decent video from Youtube regarding suspension replacement on our rigs:

clarkbre

"Is the swap hard to do?"


After doing the coil spring swap today, I would say no, it is not hard to do. Specifically, once the wheels are off the vehicle, there are three bolts/nuts to remove and replace on each side. The picture below will help show where they are.
1. The retaining clip at the top of the coil is 1/2" and came out with ease.
2. I removed the lower shock bolt and nut. Both were 18mm.
3. The nut inside the coil actually came out really easy. I used (2) extensions with a 1 1/8" socket to remove the nut. I dropped the socket down there and built a 16" extension and used my 1/2" drove ratchet to remove them. They came easily this way.


Once all was removed, I had my neighbor step on the hub and the CC824's were placed by hand without any compression tool.


Overall, I am very happy with the new springs. It brought my truck within 1/4" of level. Here's how it turned out:

1994Gre@tWhite

Nice stance!

clarkbre

Thank you. It will look much better today when the alloys wrapped in 31's go on.

clarkbre

And, here's how it looks with Moog 824's on 31x10.5r15's on stock 15x7.5 wheels. There is absolutely no rubbing at all.
(The back is sitting a tad low with the old wheels and tires in the bed)

CoWillie

Thanks Guys. Thats a gold mine of info. Being new to the site I'm 'shickled titless' to be able to get such good help!

Mista_Breeze

thankfully for you there is ton of info and current debate on these specific springs! I just put the 824 coils on mine as well after the same review from Clark here. Before and after

fltdriver

x2, very easy. I didn't have help and only weigh 150lbs so standing on the rotor and pulling up on the well didn't get me enough space or free hands to install the spring without a compressor. Save yourself some time later and also get a set of moog fully adjustable bushings, for 2wd I used K80109. at amazon with free shipping, these have the biggest range (-4 to +4),Set them to "true zero" and install, put you springs in, then take it to a shop and just get an alignment printout Go home and match the printout to the graph that comes with it, pop the bushings out, set them per the graph and install.

As for shocks I went with monroe sensa trac with the coil over shock, they are load assisting so my theory is that they will keep the spring from being compressed as far as it normally would, thus adding a little extra height. I've got the 5.8 and with 20psi in my rear shocks the truck sit's about 3/4" of level, with no air in rear the front sits 1/4" higher.
Before
After: with about 30 psi in the rear, I was still dialing it in. I think with stock style rear shocks it would be very close to level (within 1/4")