Updating my sloppy suspension

[LovinPSDs]

I’m going to upgrade the suspension in our 2012 step by step until I’m happy with its performance. Right now it’s an absolute mess on the road.

Is the right order the following??

1. Bilsteins
2. Rear sway bar
3. Front sway bar?

Does the order of sway bars matter? Front first, rear first??

Do I need to do full strut assemblies or is shocks fine?

What do y’all think?

 

[JasonH]

Check your control arm bushings. If they are worn replacing the other parts will provide an underwhelming result. Since the vehicle is a 2012, I suggest replacing maintenance items, like struts, control arm bushings, and end links first. Then go for the upgrades, like stiffer tires and sway bars.

 

[GlennSullivan]

If / When replacing shocks and struts be careful if purchasing "packaged units" which come assembled with springs. They are much much easier to change out, however Ford does not make any packaged shock / spring assemblies and the aftermarket frequently gets the spring rates wrong. I replaced all 4 on my 2011 with aftermarket / packaged units and ended up with the front of the truck 1" lower than with the factory springs, giving the truck a severe front rake.

Even though it is harder, I would suggest when replacing shocks and struts replace with the non-packaged units, even though it is much more difficult job,

Also, the front sway bar are these trucks are very large already, not sure if upgrading is necessary. As said above, I'd first focus on all bushings and making sure all fasteners on all suspension links are tight to specs.

 

[LovinPSDs]

How do you decipher a good vs. bad bushing? Rot? Is there slop? Or is there a process to properly inspect them?

 

[LovinPSDs]

If / When replacing shocks and struts be careful if purchasing "packaged units" which come assembled with springs. They are much much easier to change out, however Ford does not make any packaged shock / spring assemblies and the aftermarket frequently gets the spring rates wrong. I replaced all 4 on my 2011 with aftermarket / packaged units and ended up with the front of the truck 1" lower than with the factory springs, giving the truck a severe front rake.

Even though it is harder, I would suggest when replacing shocks and struts replace with the non-packaged units, even though it is much more difficult job,

Also, the front sway bar are these trucks are very large already, not sure if upgrading is necessary. As said above, I'd first focus on all bushings and making sure all fasteners on all suspension links are tight to specs.

My plan was Bilstein 4600s only. Do I need to replace the actual factory springs back to OEM? Not sure how wore out springs get… also, I’d really hate to be a couple grand into this thing. I do plan on keeping it but I don’t want to put 50% of its value into a repair so trying to be semi reasonable

 

[Roast4570]

Upper and lower ball joints for sure, check your Tie Rod ball joints, shocks are a good start, but the real meat and potatoes would be ball joints, control arms, sway bar, tie rod….

 

[GlennSullivan]

My plan was Bilstein 4600s only. Do I need to replace the actual factory springs back to OEM? Not sure how wore out springs get… also, I’d really hate to be a couple grand into this thing. I do plan on keeping it but I don’t want to put 50% of its value into a repair so trying to be semi reasonable

What I was saying was to NOT replace the factory springs - i.e. even though it is more difficult to replace just the shocks and reuse the factory springs, that is the best approach, provided there are no issues with the existing springs.

 

[ExplorerTom]

Search youtube for how to diagnose worn suspension components. The videos don’t need to be Expedition specific.

I would start with struts. My Bilstein 5100 are awesome.

Do you have the rear self leveling struts? If so, those springs are bigger in diameter than the non-self leveling springs. So if you are going to swap your springs to new struts, you’ll need to know this. When I did my Bilsteins (need to swap over the spring) I didn’t realize I had the self leveling struts. I had to go to the junkyard to pull struts off a non-self leveling Expedition.

Sway bars. The front sway bar is something like 1.44” in diameter. The aftermarket company (spacing on the name) has a 1.5” diameter sway bar. It’s a lot of money for a minor size difference. The rear sway bar comes in 3 different sizes. I have the largest size and it’s not that much smaller than the aftermarket sway bar.

 

[StephenOsborne1]

Get a good coil spring compressor and swapping out the shocks using the stock springs is not really tough. Using an impact and the truck on the lift, I can swap all 4 in about 3 hours taking my time. I'd look at sway bar bushings and end links before replacing the stock sway bars. If you tow heavy I might consider a bigger rear sway bar, but not really needed otherwise.

 

[Kng Rnch-Dressing]

Having spent too much time on my 2011’s suspension , I’ll second what folks are saying so far. Keep the factory springs.

I’ve used both bilstein 4600 and 5100. Both improve road holding over stock, but some might say the 4600s are on the harsh side of things. They do give the expy great handling though!

Having swapped control arms on several vehicles, I’ve found that the usual “tests” don’t reveal issues unless the bushings are already visibly shot. I have always noticed a difference swapping out 7+yr old arms/bushings though.

If you you’re not noticing clunking/squeaking, you may be able to get away with keeping the sway components (just lube the bushings while out).

Good luck

 

[Dustin Gebhardt]

I replaced all of my stock shocks with 4600's about 18 months ago. It took me the better part of a weekend and I needed to rent 2 sets of spring compressors. I also needed to upgrade my (weak) impact gun with a better unit and a set of larger sockets, which took a few hours of driving around to do, and some folks won't need to do that, obviously. When I then took it in to get re-aligned, they told me that the tie rod ends were worn. I replaced those and it passed alignment. A few months ago I noticed that the steering wheel angle was off so I took it in for an alignment again (I purchased the lifetime alignment originally). They told me that the upper and lower control arms/ball joints were shot. I purchased a whole new set of UCAs, LCAs, sway bar bushings, and camber bolts. I haven't done this job yet, but this past weekend I noticed that the rear passenger tire was loose, but the suspension seemed tight, so I figured a hub was shot. I replaced both rear hubs yesterday and my steering wheel angle problem was fixed.

If I had to do this all over again, I'd replace the UCAs when I was doing the front shocks, since the strut assembly has to be off to get at the UCA bolts, and the UCAs are a common wear component. I'd also do the inner and outer tie rods, since these are super easy if you have the front suspension already apart (and cheap). The LCAs seem to be robust, but the bushings tend to rust to the camber bolts, preventing a camber adjustment when aligned.

 

[EngineerMike]

My '99 did a weird flop-over thing where part way thru a turn the body roll angle would shift suddenly & lean farther out from the turn which changed the steering response. It was unnerving. At 160k the rear bags were shot. I replaced with cool springs & Monroe shocks rear (IIRC it was an AirLift brand pkg), & Monroe coil over feels with new coils installed as a unit. Discover chef the air pump. Rides excellent now.

 

[flyguy]

Our 2015 Expedition had a such terrible suspension that going over a speed bump sent me to the chiropractor! After some research, I chose to replace the shocks with Bilstein B8 5100s from Shock Surplus. I investigated replacing them myself, but after looking at what was required I took the car to a shop. The total cost was around $1,600, but the improvement was well worth it. Bilstein does not sell complete strut assemblies, so you must have a way of compressing the spring for a DIY project.