Ford F150 - leaf springs?

hey im gonna replace my rear shackles, shocks, and leafs in my 95 f150. im going to go to the junkyard to get the shackles and mounts, but what does everyone suggest i do about leafs and shocks? again this is my first F150, so i have absolutely no idea. any responses are greatly appreciated as usual.
thanks
-S2R

Why are you replacing all this? Are your springs sagged beyond use or are you modifying the truck? Is it 2 or 4 WD?

It also depends on what your intention is for the vehicle. If you are going to use it as a four wheel vehicle you may want less payload for more articulation, or if it is a work truck a little stiffer spring might do you better. Either way once you decide there are a number of aftermarket manufacturer's that will make you custom leafpacks, or if you want something not so custom you can buy leafpacks from places like skyjacker, deaver, etc. Hope it helps.

Well, my rear shackles, mounts, and shocks are starting to rot there's so much rust on them. And the leaf springs are on their way. I'll post pictures of them in this thread later tonight around 1 AM if you want to have a look for yourself in the morning. I am planning on lifting it 9" in four years (after college) (6" susp and 3" body). For now, I'm trying to restore it as best as possible, I started scraping and sanding the front components today, got them all primed and I'm going to paint them tomorrow. I'm just trying to get rid of the rust.

primer on the front axle


torsion bar scraped down


and the worst of the two shackles (shotgun side)

That's not a "torsion bar"; it's a "radius arm".

. . .

In addition to the shackle, I'd also HIGHLY recommend replacing the bracket on the frame.

.

yea i kinda just took a guess at what those were, im used to my 2005 IFS ranger, lol.

self2recovery - My brackets and shackles are nearly identical. I was looking for advice on how to actually go about drilling out the rivets and replacing the brackets (front and rear) myself. Ford has the rear brackets for $35 each here in Indianapolis. Looks to be an easy enough job, but I may benefit from removing the bed to get on top of those brackets. Advice? Anyone esle replaced this?
BTW...Mine's a 96 Eddie Bauer 2WD

I haven't yet started the replacement of the shackles, but I will be soon, I hope. Once I do, I'll start a new thread and take pics as I go along, hopefully it'll help you out as well.

Thanks, but I'm wondering about stripping off the brackets and replacing them as well, like can I use #8 Bolts in place of Rivets? I assume so, but I'm asking...
If you go that deep, I'd really appreciate photos!

That question is answered (in DETAIL) by the 4th & 5th diagrams in my post above. Look at them, and read the captions.

Awesome! Thanks Steve!
I totally missed that part. When I get all my parts together, I'll take some photos too.
I'm planning on doing brackets, shackles, springs and shocks in a weekend.

On Ebay, there's a company named 'suspensionsince1880'that sells complete kits for the '80-'96 F150 bracket/ shackle replacement project. A kit for both rears runs $110 with all of the bolts, nuts, washers...here's a link to the company site:



Look through the photos for the one with 2 brackets...