stupid truck, back into the shop for suspension work!!

after noticing my shock shaft on the bilstein 5100 passenger shock sticking up through the top shock mount plate the other day, went to tuffy to talk to my buddy who installed the shocks into the coils for me (i removed them and took the coil over assembly to him for the shock install). As soon as he looked at it he said the strut plate was shot on top and the shock busted right through it, said he has seen it a few times. He's ordering a new strut/shock plate for me and gonna drop the truck off tonight. Man, my luck sucks ass, after i finally got my headlights/hid's all working good this happens!! Must have just hit a good bump and the shock just shot right through the mounting hole in the upper shock plate. Bout ready to drive this truck over a damn cliff

Glad to hear you figured out what the problem is.

true, was just upset and hopin it was a simple fix. Said it would run about $200, shock plate is only $50 and i'm assumin the rest is labor. Seems a bit steep, but he normally hooks me up pretty good and i trust him. When i dropped off the coilover shocks to have the bilsteins swapped in he had a hell of a time gettin the stock shocks out, and only charged me $40, think i gave him $80 though. Only have 5k miles on these shocks so far, just strange this happened

Is the actual shock damaged too?

don't think so, think the shock shaft just popped right through the top plate. Shock looks fine though and he didn't mention anything like it could be damaged

That's good.

Good to hear

ooooo ok

Sucks that happened

its not the first one I have heard of doing it......now that I think about it. Just weird, its not like its a 1985, shouldn't have rusted out that fast!

So did it work?

I have somewhat of the same problem except mine doesnt stick an inch out of the plate with with the nut suspended in the air. However, when I lift my truck off the ground with a jack, the shaft sinks a half an inch down.

That pic is when the truck is on the ground, but when I lift the wheels off the ground so the suspension is at full droop, the top shaft sinks in half an inch. I did the bilsteins a year ago and made sure to replace the strut mounts when I did the install so they shouldn't be an issue.

Yup, all back up and runnin now. had the strut mount replaced and cost me $200. If your shock shaft is suckin back into the upper strut mount when u jack up the truck, I would look into it further and Check it out. Same thing was happening with mine and the shaft was just dangling in the air, coil spring was doin all the work and the shock wasn't bein compressed at all. Granted, mine was sticking up about an inch through the strut plate, when I lifted the front wheels off the floor with the jack the shaft sucked back down into the strut plate and looked like normal. If assembled properly, that shaft should not be protruding through the strut plate at all and should be recessed a bit, and the shaft should not move when the front end is lifted off the ground. If yours is sticking up just a little bit but sucks back down, then I would guess maybe the nut is just loose on the shock shaft. Easy way to make sure the shock is still bolted in there properly- have someone bounce on the front bumper and look at the shock to make sure the shaft is compressing into the shock body