If you can’t tell that black spring perch is supposed to rest on the ring about an inch above the Bilstein logo.
Guess it turns out NAPA uses a larger shock body than OEM and Bilstein.
Expedition rear ends are the same from 2007-2017.
In 2015 Ford decided to start having the spring perch actually attached to the shock body. Prior to that it was removable. Bilstein is the only quality company making shocks for the Expedition. But when Ford made the switch to attached perches Bilstein did not.
I saw that NAPA still utilizes a removable spring perch so I special ordered them (just the perches) assuming the shock body would be the same diameter. Figured for as cheap as they were it was worth the gamble saving me time from deconstructing the factory shocks to remove the perches. Turns out no such luck.

Not a huge deal. Once I pull the OEM shock put it in a vise wrapped in a towel and slowly drill a hole in the body to relieve the pressure then take a reciprocating saw to the body just above the perch and you can remove it to reuse it.
Fortunately this method HAS been done and tested.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Black92LX,

Men plan, God laughs.

Glad there is a work around.

Why does a 2015 model car need shocks?

I have a million miles driven and have never once changed the shocks????

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
Why does a 2015 model car need shocks?

I have a million miles driven and have never once changed the shocks????

on the same shocks?

It’s actually a 2016 and should not NEED shocks but my drivers rear is completely shot!



I have been planning to swap them out for awhile now since I am lifting the truck 2” and stepping up to 34” tires. I have been parts collecting and saving for awhile now and planned to do it when I had saved a bit more but the puddle of shock fluid in the drive, the rear end thud over decent bumps, and the droopy dragging left side of the rear made the swap imperative.
Ohh well just means I can get her off Road a little sooner then planned.

While I have not had a shock completely die on me like this. I have had get them get soft on me over time and swapping them made a huge improvement in ride and stopping.

Yes, Ford's OEM shocks suck big green donkey balls. I upgraded to Eibachs on my 2015 F-150. The front have an adjustable height spring perch to level the front end.

At 15,000 miles, both of my OEM rear shocks could be completely compressed by hand and they stayed compressed with no rebound at all. The fronts were a major PITA. First off Ford changed the design of the lower mounting bolts and they're now pressed into the shock. Two solutions to get them out, beat on the end of the bolt with a mini sledge and force them out or remove the pivot bolt and drop the whole lower A-arm to gain enough clearance to pull out the shock/spring assembly.

Then there was the perches themselves. I had one of the first Eibach kits shipped and they didn't include any spring perches, After a couple of phone calls there solution was to take a hammer and beat on the OEM perches to separate them from the OEM shock body. Really? It worked but it was a major PITA.

Found my original rant on the F-150 forum about installing the rear shocks.

Before ranting, let me state having autocrossed for years, modifying and setting up cars for competition for several years, I'm no stranger to suspension work.

That said, oh my God what a PITA today has been!

Changing out the craptacular OEM shocks that came on my 2015 F-150 FX-4 Supercrew for a set of Eibach Pro-Truck Sport shocks. The ones with the adjustable spring perch on the front to level the front end.

Drop my daughter off at school come home, figured the rear shocks will be easy so back the truck in to the garage and start to get everything together. Get out the Rhino ramps that my next door neighbor borrowed for his toy hauler and holy cracked plastic Batman, the corners are completely cracked and deformed like he had overloaded them or drove over the top of them. No way in hell am I going to trust these now to hold up 2-1/2 tons of steel and aluminum over my head while I wrench on it.

Quick trip to O'Reilly's where I got my original ramps when they used to be Checker. Not a normally stocked item but they can order them from their warehouse and have them in 2-3 days. F-it, I'll get them off Amazon if I have to. Ever since they were bought out by O'Reilly their stock has been about as barren as Paris Hilton's frontal lobe. Brave the walking Dead at Wal-Mart, no-go on ramps. Drive over to Napa, they've got them and print out a duplicate receipt that I can give to my neighbor with no understanding of basic physics or courtesy.

Back home, on the ramps, pull craptastic plastic bodied OEM shock out on the driver's side with no problem. Then pause to think, I paid extra for the FX-4 Off-Road package that comes with craptastic plastic bodied shocks and passenger car P-series all season tires. Really? So the "Off-Road" package rally is nothing more than skid plates and stickers. The stickers that I peeled off the first day I owned the truck. So basically a full sized pickup with the off road capability of an Subaru full of lesbians. Just for grins and giggles I compressed the OEM shock, it stays compressed absolutely no rebound, it only has 15,000 miles on it.

Go to put the new Eibach shock in. Well the rear shocks are made for stock to 1" higher than stock ride height. They're long, longer than the OEM. It's hanging from the top mount and the hole for the mounting bolt is quite a few inches below the lower mounting bracket. I try and compress it and muscle it into place. Holy crap this thing is stiffer than Ron Jeremy after taking half a bottle of Viagra, it ain't happening. Try various combinations of ramps and floor jacks to try and get the driver's side rear suspension at full droop to give me a chance. Then went through various combinations of pry bars, screwdrivers, drift punches and a floor jack to try to compress the shock, get it into place and get the bolt through the mounting bracket and the shock. Finally grabbed hold of my long handled pickle fork and used it as a lever between the bottom of the shock and the mounting bracket an it popped right into place slicker than Marilyn Chambers.

F-it, take a break, go inside, drink some Gatorade and cool off before attempting the passenger side. Come back out to the garage and hear a commotion inside the cab. Yes, I left my windows down and now I have a dove who perched on my center console that is more frantic than Hillary Clinton after the last debate flying around the inside of my truck trying to get out leaving fathers and bird poop all over the interior of the truck. Really?

Pop the passenger side OEM craptastic shock out no problem. Bolt the top of the shock in place, try the same trick I used on the other side to get this side in. Nope, won't go the passenger side shock is mounted pointing forwards rather than rearward like the driver's side. FML! OK, some more wiggling and prying and I'm able to get the bolt started but not through. Out comes the Ford repair tool, the 5lb. mini sledge hammer. Banged it like it was Jenna Jameson and it was in.

Not quite 4 hours with all the running around for what was basically 4 bolts. Had to stop for the day so I would have a truck in one piece and drivable to go pick my daughter up from school. So driving over speed bumps with the Eibachs in the back and craptastic OEM shocks in front, the truck bobs more than Monica Lewinsky.

I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow brings when I get out the spring compressors and deal with replacing the shock inside the coil over assemblies on the front end. Or I may just go slam my johnson inside an unabridged dictionary, it might be less painful.

Forgot to mention, as I spent more time on my back than a sorority pledge this morning, I kept having to look at the stamp on the back of my OEM alloy wheel, "Made in China". Yes the vehicle with the highest content of American parts rolls on Chinese wheels.

And here was the rant about the fronts.

Apologies for taking so long to get this up after the initial rant about the rears last week. Being short staffed at work has had me picking up extra shifts and out of touch with everything else for the past several days.

I completed the install of the Eibach Pro-Truck Sport shocks on the truck. The fronts have adjustable ride height to level the front end similar to the Bilstein 5100's for the previous generation F-150's. My truck is a 4x4 with the FX-4 package and 3.5 Ecoboost.

First the good, overall I'm happy with the end result. The ride is much more controlled now. The floatiness of the original OEM shocks is gone. With only 15,000 miles the OEM shocks were done. They could be easily compressed by hand and they basically stayed compressed with little no rebound. The bounciness of the rear end is much more controlled. The ride is very firm. Probably a little firmer than the Bilstein 5100's were on my 2013. But that truck was much heavier and it's been over a year since I traded it in so maybe not the most objective observation. Highway ride is great. Driving over the washboarded dirt road that parallels the road to our house, the ride is harsher but the handling is much more composed and controlled. If you like the floaty ride of a 1970's Buick, these are not the shocks to upgrade to.

Ride height is adjustable with a snap ring on the shock body. There are 4 positions for the snap rings. I set mine at the highest level. In retrospect, I would've set them one position down from the highest, but I'm not feeling industrious enough to pull the truck back apart, make the adjustment and then put it back together again. The highest setting does provide slightly more than the advertised 2" of lift in the front. Measurements were taken from the floor to the lip of the fender through the centerline of the wheel.

Right front:
37-1/2" Pre-Install
39-5/8" Post-Install

Left front:
37-1/4" Pre-Install
39-1/2" Post-Install

Now the bad, Installation of these is an absolute PITA. I used to be heavily into autocrossing, so I'm experienced with suspension work. I also installed the Bilstein 5100's on my 2013. With that install the biggest challenge was getting the upper ball joints to separate. With the new truck the upper ball joints came about with just a tap of the hammer.

With the new front suspension design, the lower mount of the shock is two vertical bolts through the lower control arm instead of a single horizontal bolt like my 2013. The bolts are pressed into place and do not separate from the shock body. As a result of the added length to the coil over assembly by the pressed in mounting bolts, there is not enough clearance to remove the OEM coil over unit by just separating the spindle from the upper ball joint. I had to remove the pivot bolts for the lower control arms to remove the coil over units. I supported the knuckle end of the control arm on a floor jack while I did this.

Once I had the springs compressed and the OEM coil overs disassembled, I realized that there were no new spring perches included with the new shocks as shown in the pictures on their website. I called Eibach's technical support and was told that it was not an oversight, that the OEM spring perches had to be removed from the shock body and reused on the new shocks. I told them that the OEM perches appeared to be integral to the shock body. Their response was that the spring perches are press fit onto the shock body and to bang on them with a rubber mallet to separate them. That didn't happen. Separation required a trip to my mechanic's shop, a hydraulic press and a sleeve. In retrospect if I had known, I would've talked to Eibach or located elsewhere new spring perches to use on the install. As it was, I needed to get my truck back together and drivable so the OEM perches were reused.

The rears which should've been simple proved to be a PITA. The shocks are listed for stock ride height as well as 1" lifted. They are longer than OEM, they're also very stiff. The result is a shock body that is significantly longer than the length between the top mounting hole on the frame and the lower mounting hole on the axle. Even with several gyrations of ramps and floor jacks to get the rear suspension at full droop for install, the shocks were still long and required compression to get into place. After various attempts at compressing it with prybars and a floor jack I was able to get the shock in place using a pickle fork. Placing one tine of the fork in the slot of the lower mounting bracket, I was able to get the shaft of the fork underneath the bottom of the shock and then use the handle for leverage. I was able to slide the shock along the shaft of the fork, into place and secured with the mounting bolt. Two shocks and four bolts should not have taken nearly the time that it did.

Yup I am clear on the spring perch removal being a PITA hence the reason I bought the NAPAs hoping they would fit.
I am tempted to take those to a fab shop and see if they can weld in a sleeve.
As for all the other issues you had sure hoping I don’t run into those issues.
I have watched a number of YouTube videos and all seems pretty straight forward. I am planing on using the adjustable 5100s on the front for 2” of lift and 2” spacers on the rear with the 4600.
F150s front work on the Expedition on Bilstein makes a coilover and am tempted to use those.

I have contacted King Suspension to see if they can make an emulsion shock with adjustable lower perch. I can’t afford their full custom coilovers doubtful I can afford just the emulsion shock either but worth a shot.

If not drilling a hole in the shock then lopping the end off with a Sawzall is supposed to get the perch of fairly easily.

And yes the FX4 package is not nearly what they tout it to be.
The skid plates you are better off going with RCI metalworks package and pretty much any available aftermarket shock.
The rear e locker is nice but not worth the cost of the package I don’t think.

The other thing I find wild is that the spring perches sit on nothing more than that little bitty snap ring.

What a nightmare...over something that should be so simple. Since the late 90s, Ford has been king of over-complicating stuff that they don't need to, and sticking stuff where you can't get at it. I naively agreed to help a buddy change the struts on his Taurus one time...I'd just done it on my Impala, and it was a simple straightforward job...unbolt, bolt on, take it out for an alignment. Not so on the Taurus...took about 5 hours and we had to drop the cradle to get everything out and back in properly. And I crushed the tar out of my thumb in the process.

Don't get me wrong...the 00-05 Impala is easily as much of a POS as the contemporary Taurus, but at least you can work on the stupid thing without having to jump through hoops. I've looked at F150s and Expeditions at times over the years, because they're nice trucks, but I've always opted to spend a little more time looking until I find a comparably priced Silverado or Suburban just because I know I'm going to be under the hood either way, and it's frustrating enough fighting with rust, age, and wear without having to fight institutional engineering incompetence as well.

So things continue not to go as planned!!!
I should have figured something was up when everyone including Amazon bumped the price up $30 a shock for the front Bilstein 5100s.
Found one place that had not jacked the price up so I placed my order today. They end up calling and say there is a national backorder on these and they have 39 orders in front of mine and they have no clue when they will see them.
So I start checking other retailers sounds like they all drop ship them from Bilstein. I can’t find anyone with them actually in stock.
Which sucks. I have 33” tires and everything else needed for the install sitting in the garage.
A bad shock that is pissing me off.
So next possibility is step up to the 6112 Coilover to the tune of $675 in stead of $240.

Or 2000Z-71 how did you like those Eibachs aside from the install? They look to be pretty much the same design as the Bilsteins.
Would really prefer Bilsteins all around but need to get this stuff swapped out sooner than later.
ICON claims there will be an Expedition kit in due time so I am already saving for those but I am guessing a couple years before I can afford them.