Tuner710
Member
Hi all. Been lurking here and getting LOTS of good tips on a lot of work on my 1998 Expy. Figured it is time to pay it back! A few tips I kept track of as I went along withy the Monroe 90010 kit:
Soak all hardware before starting.
Mark your keyed bolts on upper control arms, so you can put them back the same and maintain your alignment. Had to pull them to fit the shocks in and out.
You have to evacuate the air from the rear air bags, by twisting the solenoid. Wear safety glasses, its going to blow road dirt all over the place!
Install the drivers side rear shock first. Because of the gas tank location I had to access the upper shock bolt from the other side of the pumpkin with a couple extensions across the top of the tank, and the Pass shock was hanging in my way.
The coil springs have a smaller radius on top than the bottom, the rubber insulator that came with the kit fits snug in the upper coil so thats a quick way to tell.
Have a bottle jack handy to move the axle that extra inch down to fit the new coil in, the trailing arms kinda hold the rear end up a bit too much. Once theyre in just jockey your bottle jack, and the floor jack under the axle, and watch the spring as it seats to make sure its where it belongs.
The instructions state to pull the fuse for the compressor, I figure the off switch is good enough. Im the only one that would mess with it anyway. The instructions also say to pull the warning light bulb from the cluster, which I will do when my ambition returns, meanwhile a piece of black tape will do.
Hope this helps someone. I am really happy with the ride which is stiffer but not jarring, the next test will be hooking the boat on the back to see what 4000 pounds will do to it!
Soak all hardware before starting.
Mark your keyed bolts on upper control arms, so you can put them back the same and maintain your alignment. Had to pull them to fit the shocks in and out.
You have to evacuate the air from the rear air bags, by twisting the solenoid. Wear safety glasses, its going to blow road dirt all over the place!
Install the drivers side rear shock first. Because of the gas tank location I had to access the upper shock bolt from the other side of the pumpkin with a couple extensions across the top of the tank, and the Pass shock was hanging in my way.
The coil springs have a smaller radius on top than the bottom, the rubber insulator that came with the kit fits snug in the upper coil so thats a quick way to tell.
Have a bottle jack handy to move the axle that extra inch down to fit the new coil in, the trailing arms kinda hold the rear end up a bit too much. Once theyre in just jockey your bottle jack, and the floor jack under the axle, and watch the spring as it seats to make sure its where it belongs.
The instructions state to pull the fuse for the compressor, I figure the off switch is good enough. Im the only one that would mess with it anyway. The instructions also say to pull the warning light bulb from the cluster, which I will do when my ambition returns, meanwhile a piece of black tape will do.
Hope this helps someone. I am really happy with the ride which is stiffer but not jarring, the next test will be hooking the boat on the back to see what 4000 pounds will do to it!
