Monroe coil shocks to end bottoming out
 

So, I don't have any pictures at the moment, but I am so pleased at this point, I feel I need to share this, in case anyone else has a similar issue some day.

I am running the Belltech 1000SP drop kit, adjustable struts up front, flip in the rear, with their lift shackle to control rear drop at 5.5". Well, first round was the whole kit installed as per instructions, with no spacers on the strut for full 3" drop. As many have noticed, the drop seems to vary from truck to truck with this kit, presumably due to variances in springs between trucks, seemingly at random. I ended up getting about 6 1/4" drop in the rear, and only about 2 1/2" or so in the front, so she looked like she was dragging ass, really bad.

Setup 2 involved Crown 3" drop springs, and putting some spacers back in the strut, which netted me about 4 1/2" drop in the front, giving me a touch of rake back to my stance, given how low the rear ended up getting down.

My biggest problem with how the truck drove was due to the rear. The rear shocks seemed really soft from day 1. To top it off, even with the slim Belltech rear bump stops, I had just about spot on 1" bump travel until hitting the stops. Over uneven road, the back end seemed to float a LOT, while the front seemed decently controlled. All of this made for bottoming out, and quite often. You could always tell from that nice hard THUD at the smallest of dips and filled gaps in the road.

My solution? Monroe SensaTrac 58642 load adjust shocks with overload coil springs. They are supposed to provide 1100lbs overload capacity. These particular ones are a bit longer than what my full droop measurement came in at, but offer tons of travel, and aren't even close to bottomed out at full bump. They took a bit of effort to compress enough to install (ratchet strap around the ends, worked like a charm), but they went right in place. When taking the Belltech shocks off, I could compress them by hand with ease, and they very slowly would extend themselves (maybe 3-4 minutes from full compress to full extend).

The rear of the truck actually maintains composure now, and is near perfectly matched to the ride up front on the Belltech struts. The one downside, I did lose about 1/2" of my drop in the rear, but a tad more rake, and a little more axle travel clearance isn't necessarily a bad thing. Been driving on these shocks about a week now, no long trips yet, but am so far very pleased with them! Not a single bottom out since install, and I even borrowed a riding lawn mower from a friend, and brought it home in the bed, not a single hit on the way with it.

tl:dr- bottomed out ALL THE TIME on Belltech rear shocks, floaty ass ride, got sick of it, bought Monroe coil overload shocks, lost a bit of rear drop, but fixed the bottoming out issue, nice controlled ride now. Just wanted to give another option I was successful with!

thank you for that. Do you mind sharing what truck you have this set up on?

Pretty sure its in his signature, 2015 F150 2.7L XLT SCrew SBed, 301A, 2wd, 3.31EL "Gemma" my DD

Haha, yeah, my sig truck

I added these shocks as well, adding pictures for thread info...


https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.f15...6d1c52a62d.jpg

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.f15...4c83f71152.jpg

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.f15...ee5f8b7387.jpg

L
 

Nice ! That's good to know 🤙I'd look into shock extenders.. I bet you'd get your ride height back 🤣

Great suggestion! Especially with this style of shock.

I had actually considered that, the coils are a bit compressed lol, not sure how much bump travel I actually have from ride height, but I don't think those coils can close up much more. A slightly shorter unit might have been better, but the ride is already much better than it was. When I have money for a little notch and drop spindles, I'm going further haha, shock extenders and the stock shackle will go in. I want a total of about a 5/7, which shouldn't take really more than stock shackles, and the front spindles, I can mix and match between the rings for the Belltech struts and the Crown drop springs to really fine tune the front stance and and overall rake. Now...to get extra money lol

I did some exhaustive research and found Monroe part number 58632 would be a good fit to replace the BellTech rear shock with a tiny modification.

The 58642 is 25.170" long uncompressed and 15.340" compressed.
The 58632 in 21.625" long uncompressed and 13.625" compressed.

This would compress the coils less for easier install and perhaps less rear lift. Both have a spring rate of 60, but the mounting sleeve is 1/2" ID on the 58642 and 12mm ID on the 58632 for a difference of .028". You can get a 1/2" reamer bit and open up the 12mm to 1/2" pretty easily.

Thanks Andrew, that's great man! The sizes on 58632 sounds perfect on length, and reaming out the mount wouldn't be much effort. Would definitely eliminate the desire for shock extenders where I currently sit. I tried looking around for more sizes, but never found just quite what I was looking for, and just found some that would work as I got sick and tired of hitting bump stops on EVERYTHING haha, and just pulled the trigger. Good looking out for future readers though!