yet another bad thing about living in the rust belt, the right one is still good for a bit but this left-side hanger has about had it. going to do both soon.

A little duct tape and some bailing wire and she'll be good as new. Seriously though, HOLY SH*T...glad I'm no where near the rust belt, hell they don't even use salt it's either sand or maybe every now and again slag.

Eeek!! that's some thing out of a dark nightmare..
You live on a Salt flat or some thing.

truck was sold new in colorado, dont know if they use salt or not. its been here in central ohio for the last 6 years at least, they seem to salt here if theres a heavy frost. im one to wash it frequently and spray the undercairage good to try and keep as much off it as possible. guess its inevitable, it is a 16 y/o truck after all.

Colorado's not as bad for salt/rust as other places.

Those rear hangers are a terrible design- catch and hold whatever bounces off the wheels. Remarkably, mine are still solid. Knocked a hole in one of the shackles trying to clean it up for paint a couple years back, so those are new, but the hangers just had a little surface rust on 'em.

found this kit, with shipping and spring bushings the cost came to just under $150. think i may get a qt of liquid bedliner to coat the pieces in before installing-->http://stengelbros.3dcartstores.com/338-1950K_p_0-6654.html best part of the kit is that all the hardware comes with it i had priced parts through L.M.C. and it was alot higher.

Yeah your lucky your not from here. they use liquid stuff to melt the ice on the roads and it eats anything thats metal even these fancy new cars.

got it done today. started at 11, was putting tools away by 5:30. a torch is defintly helpful. while pulling the bed may help, i didnt want to go to that extreme, thats 4-6 more (major) fasteners, i had no help, and as badly rusted as things are under my rig, it would just be more time spent than i felt was worth. first thing i did was get the but up in the air, just as high as my jackstands would go. i pulled both rear tires and put the jack under the differential. unbolted the lower shock mounts, pulled the exhaust pipe out of the muffler. (i just put a new exhaust on it a few weeks back and used anti-seize on the joints, wasnt a problem) tried taking off the bolts holding the shackle to the spring, right side nut came off, left side just turned and collaped the rotting shackle. took the torch to the left side nut at the spring/shackle. torched off all the rivit heads. on the left side of my truck the back 2 (up and down) were bolts, torched them also. torched off the shackle where it meets the spring, lowered the rear axle with the floor jack as much as possible (rear brake line limits you here) took a hammer and chisel to the edge of the old brackets to seperate them from the frame. was able to knock rivits/bolts out o.k. on left side, right side only 1 would knock out, fired up the torch again and burnt them out. for removal of the spring bushings from the spring, i heated it up good with a torch, put the impact gun to the remaining bolt head and just kept at the trigger, it worked itself out, pried out the rubber from the spring eye with a screwdriver. putting the new bushings in was super easy. clean the spring eye, get some all-thread with nuts/washers.(you want it to just fit through the bushing) pass the all-thread thru the bushing & spring eye, put on bolts/washers, a little anti-seize for thread lubrication and i also lightly coated the bushing. the spring eyes were still warm from the torch, im sure this helped a bit. ratchet on one end of your all-thread, wrench on the other. and just "draw" it together. i cleaned the frame and sprayed on some areosol truck bed liner (i did my brackets and shackles the night before also) let it dry while i was putting the torch and air compressor away. put on the brackets, attached the spring to the shackle. hooked up my shocks and exhaust, tires back on, jackstands out, tightend wheels and hooked up diff vent tube (i had forgot about it when lowering the axle, it simply pulled out of the sot in the bed rib where it had been stuck) put tools away and headed home. (i did this at my folks farm, most of my tools are there, theres a nice slab of concrete to work on, and most of all dads torch! thres no room for a grinder) i didnt take the camera with me and its rather pointless to show you the new parts on. i did take pics of the old shackles after i removed them, they were much worse than i thought. the heating and banging really loosened more rust. got to do dads '94 3/4 ton next, the r.s. on it has seperated completely. one thing i found odd, on the 3/4 ton fords its basically the same bracketry (just bigger) but its installed upside down! (compared to how its on a ranger) heres the pics of the old junk once removed, 2 are of the left side and the last is of the right. wouldnt have made it another year!

I sympathize. I found this on mine over the weekend.



I'm glad you got yours fixed!

Ryan

Wow thats some bad rust.

I did my shackles with the bed removed. I was seeing some serious surface rust all over in the back, so when I blew a brake line at a time that, while inconvenient, did at least allow me another vehicle to get to/from work, I just yanked the bed and did it all.

To be honest...I think it was easier than what you did- the four rear bed bolts came out after warming up with a propane torch and some penetrant, and the front two were protected by the gas tank so they came out without any extra effort (good, since I didn't dare take the torch in there). I guess if you didn't have another strong back to lift it off, though, that wouldn't really be an option (mine wasn't too bad for two people, though).

EDIT: pic-

Shoort beeed......

TexasNomad said:

Shoort beeed......

Click to expand...

Its a Ranger...

You could use a cherry picker to pull it off if ya have one handy.

the only thing that would have helped me would have been a small tractor with a loader to lift it off with, and even at that id have to take the cap off first. if the front mounts "go" i'll about have to go that route i 'spose. you should see the 3/4 ton of dads, the r/s looks like someone took a bite out of the shackle. its going to be a real treat, we have a D.M.I. spring-hitch to remove, the rear fuel tank, and the front fuel tank is unuseable due to a leak. this truck came from the pennsylvania oil fields and is incredible rusty underneath, i saw signs yesterday of the rear diff cover leaking, pin holes in the middle of the cover. weird stuff. if i did pull the bed id have drove it that way for a bit, just to see how it did with no weight on the frame, wouldnt be hard to rig lighting, just plug into the trailer light plug. bet id get some major wheel hop on wet pavement.