Exhausted
Senior Member
This is my write up on the mcgaughys part number 44052. First I want to say why I bought this one. It was between this and the Belltech kit; I went with this one because it comes with a relocation bracket for the panhard bar. On other vehicles I have had: belltech, chassis tech, Hotchkis, Eibach, QA1. I have always wanted to try the McGaughys kits.
Showed up last Thursday and the two boxes were taped and strapped together, plain white. UPS did the usual bang up job.
Opened them up and the product itself was quality IMO but the instructions were a joke!
Looks like someone just wrote them in 10-15 minutes, not a good job. I would have gladly paid an extra 5-10 bucks for the instructions to be thorough and give a list of tools rather than me almost empty out my tool box and getting up and down about a hundred times during the install.
This was done in my garage with a jack and jack stands, no lift. I had air tools and all hand tools needed. The job was broken up into the front on Friday night and the rear on Saturday afternoon. The front took about 2- 2.5 hours the rear took about 3 hours.
The front is straight forward, take the shock out, pull brake caliper off, disconnect ti-rod, disconnect upper ball joint, lower jack to release front spring. Reverse for install.
The rear was a little different; disconnect shock, sway bar and panhard bar. Lower rear and the springs practically fall out. Used a saws-all to cut off the old bump stop brackets (that sucked) they forgot to give bolts to install the new poly bump stops
The hardest part of this install is the relocation bracket for the panhard bar. There is a hole you have to drill and blindly put and bolt and nut on. Where the panhard bar was in the factory bracket there is now a spacer so in order to get the hole drilled right you basically install the bracket, drill the hole and take it all off and install the bolt through the hole you drilled and the blind one then the big one with the spacer.
Also I found it best to leave the sway bar and panhard bar loose and finish up everything else and put the wheels back on, then lower the truck and tighten them.
I’ll take some after pics tomorrow and post them up.
I forgot to get measurements before the install but the after measurements from the ground to the fender are 35 ¼ on both rear and driver front, passenger front is 34 ¾
I’m thinking the front driver side will settle some more, last night when I finished up the front I forgot the install the passenger shock and put the wheel on and let it set like that over night. Plus they have dropped about ¾ of an inch today from driving around.
Anyway post up if you have any questions or comments
Thanks!
Pics added
sorry for the quality. we are expecting a "blizzard" later today through tuesday. so the truck is still dirty from the snow last week
before
after
Showed up last Thursday and the two boxes were taped and strapped together, plain white. UPS did the usual bang up job.
Opened them up and the product itself was quality IMO but the instructions were a joke!
Looks like someone just wrote them in 10-15 minutes, not a good job. I would have gladly paid an extra 5-10 bucks for the instructions to be thorough and give a list of tools rather than me almost empty out my tool box and getting up and down about a hundred times during the install.
This was done in my garage with a jack and jack stands, no lift. I had air tools and all hand tools needed. The job was broken up into the front on Friday night and the rear on Saturday afternoon. The front took about 2- 2.5 hours the rear took about 3 hours.
The front is straight forward, take the shock out, pull brake caliper off, disconnect ti-rod, disconnect upper ball joint, lower jack to release front spring. Reverse for install.
The rear was a little different; disconnect shock, sway bar and panhard bar. Lower rear and the springs practically fall out. Used a saws-all to cut off the old bump stop brackets (that sucked) they forgot to give bolts to install the new poly bump stops
The hardest part of this install is the relocation bracket for the panhard bar. There is a hole you have to drill and blindly put and bolt and nut on. Where the panhard bar was in the factory bracket there is now a spacer so in order to get the hole drilled right you basically install the bracket, drill the hole and take it all off and install the bolt through the hole you drilled and the blind one then the big one with the spacer.
Also I found it best to leave the sway bar and panhard bar loose and finish up everything else and put the wheels back on, then lower the truck and tighten them.
I’ll take some after pics tomorrow and post them up.
I forgot to get measurements before the install but the after measurements from the ground to the fender are 35 ¼ on both rear and driver front, passenger front is 34 ¾
I’m thinking the front driver side will settle some more, last night when I finished up the front I forgot the install the passenger shock and put the wheel on and let it set like that over night. Plus they have dropped about ¾ of an inch today from driving around.
Anyway post up if you have any questions or comments
Thanks!
Pics added
sorry for the quality. we are expecting a "blizzard" later today through tuesday. so the truck is still dirty from the snow last week
before
after
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