My '03 is showing its age and the suspension has started to sag a little, but only on the passenger side. I measured the distance between the top of the tire and the bottom of the fender, and found that there is a difference between the two sides, but I can't remember exactly how much at the moment (it's not more than an inch or so). This is only on the front of the truck, the rear suspension seems to be just fine. I'm trying to run down the possible fixes and could use some input.

The first thing I'm going to check is to see if the torsion bar bolt may have gotten loose and caused the one side to sag. If this is the case, it should be a pretty simple fix, but I'm not too familiar with truck suspension to know if this is even possible.

The second thing I am going to try is to get some new shocks. I've been looking for an excuse to upgrade to HD Bilstein shocks anyway. If I go this route, I'll replace all the shocks, front and rear, just so I don't have to worry about it in the future.

The third possible cause I wanted to check was if the coil spring was worn out. Again, a good time to upgrade if this was the case - any suggestions? I'm sort of thinking about the Eibach kit that gives me an extra 1" in the front to make a little more room for my tires. I just don't know how to tell if its bad or not.

Am I missing anything here? Thanks...

 

I heard Bilstein shocks ride rough. I know with my FX4, it already rides rough. Im wanting to go a bit smoother cuz I havent been off roading enough.

 

you either have torsion bars or coil springs, not both. 2wd trucks have coil springs, and 4wd trucks have torsion bars.

 

See, my inexpirence shows through! I probably would have figured that out pretty quickly when I started digging into it tomorrow. Don't worry, I've got plenty of wrench time with bikes and cars - this is the first truck I've ever had.

 

no sweat, good luck on it!

 

Turns out the shocks were shot. Passenger side was pretty much frozen, and the driver's side was not much better. Ended up not getting the Bilsteins because the local auto parts store did not have them stock (need to do about 500 miles of driving this weekend), but the ones I did get have a nice warranty and were a pretty good price. The ride is dramatically better as well, but then again, I didn't have much suspension before, so anything is going to be better.

 

Cool blog...I've built a few custom bikes in my day to...