Front Spring Seat

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PacoTaco

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First post!! Well after reading here as a guest and going by what I read here I ordered Bilsteins 4600 shocks for all four wheels to hopefully eliminate the side to side sway I have. I installed the rear and took the front shocks to a body shop I deal with that had a spring compressor and asked them to mount the Bilsteins. They do not come as a strut assembly so the shop said they would have to use the lower spring seat off the old ones. However the Mastercraft's that were on there have the spring support welded on so cannot be used. Ram does not offer that part separately and I cannot find anyone who has it separately. Has anyone found a solution for this problem? If not I will not be able to use the Bilsteins and will have to find a assembly with the spring that would be compatible with the 4600's. Does anyone have a opinion of what might work well with the Bilstein 4600"s? Bruce
 

kurek

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Oh man, been down this road.

So to save you some time contacting Bilstein, their official answer is to go buy a set of take-offs from a Ram, like on ebay and use those spring seats.

Bilstein actually manufactures a really similar seat, like exactly identical construction but it's for a Toyota strut and doesn't fit the Ram strut - the reason I bring it up is that Bilstein totally could make these seats and chooses not to.

Procomp makes a machined aluminum spring seat for their ProRunner shocks (For Ram 1500's) which physically fits on the Bilstein strut body and ring, and is engineered to be retained in exactly the same fashion -but the height of the spring seat itself relative to the height of the rings on the Bilstein strut make it incompatible unless you want to try to mix-and-match yourself a custom lift height out of the deal.
 
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PacoTaco

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This sucks as I really wanted matching shocks/performance all the way around. Hard to believe somebody does not make a replacement seat but apparently they don't. I will have a set of Bilsteins cheap for sale but my real problem is I will have to order new strut assemblies and hope they will complement the Bilsteins on the rear. I guess I will look at KYB Truck-Plus shocks which use the Excel-G shock as they don't seem to make the Monotube model in a complete strut. I don't wish to spend more than what they will cost but if people here highly recommend something I will pay attention.
 

kurek

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FYI - this is the part Bilstein manufactures for a Toyota strut.. I wasn't able to find one to buy but it sure looks an awful lot like the right part.

63BBF229-3391-4B3A-9B58-81DA6A923438.jpg

Bilstein also makes this part, not sure what it's for but again, seems like it would be the right kind of thing and proves that Bilstein can manufacture this stuff just doesn't seem to want to.
bilstein-springseat.jpg

Here is the distance from the lowest point on the OEM ram spring seat to the center of the mounting bolt, with the adjustable ring on the stock height (bottom) ring of a Bilstein 5100 - also the bottom ring position on a Bilstein 4600
20201002_165643.jpg

Here is the aftermarket seat from ProComp (these are sold individually, or come with the ProRunner ZX struts)

20201002_165258.jpg

Here is the distance from the lowest point on the molded spring seat to the center of the mounting bolt when installed on the lowest notch on the Bilstein 5100's (same as above)

20201002_165554.jpg

So you can see that's about a 1" difference, and would result in about a 1.5" suspension lift if installed like that with the OEM coil spring.
 
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PacoTaco

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Ok I will check out that ProChamp part. Looks like that is the lower seat I need. The others I believe are the upper seat. The truck has a forward lean that I hear some try to fix and if mine ended up a little higher in front I think it would be OK
 
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PacoTaco

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I believe the Bilstein part you show is what comes with the shock. It is a "stop" for the spring seat that you use from the OEM strut that I don't have. Correct me if I am wrong. Thanks Bruce
 
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