This is for the 3rd gen 4x4 with the coil over shocks. I don’t know if this applies to any other year truck.
If you are anything like me and you live in the rust belt of the USA this may happen to you and this is how I fixed it.

Way down low on the bottom of the shock is the mounting bolt. The bolt has tab that is welded to the mount so you only need to spin it out from the front. Not so much for me.
As soon as I put my impact on the bolt that tap snapped.
The only way to get the bolt off is to put a wrench from underneath the backside of the axle, and wedge it against the mount using a bar to turn the bolt to wedge the wrench holding the nut.
Then heat the nut until it’s cherry red and you think the rubber of the shock is almost to it’s melting point. use slight pressure on ur bar to break then nut free.
To install the nut wrap some 12 or 14 gauge wire around the nut and feed to through the spring from above. If you have long needle nose pliers you can try and feed the nut from below or is chewing gum to hold the nut to the wrench. Then thread it by turning the bolt and you are home free. If you install a new bolt like I did, I recommend a grade 8, size 9/16, 3-1/4 or 3-1/2 inch with washers on each side and a anti backing bolt. I used 3” and I believe that I’ll switch it out next time I do shocks.
I didn’t take many pictures i know they are worth their weight in gold when doing a write up.
Hope this helps save someone the headache I had to deal with.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk