Dave Clark and I just finished installing his wet bolts. We did as the Dexter guy told us and it took one third the time it did for H. Jon and I to do either of ours. We jacked his 3400 behind the rear wheels with new 12 ton jack. We built a platform for the jacks out of the lego blocks, between the two of us we had 5 bags of them (50). This worked very well. we used two safety stands as they were only 6 ton stands. After we got the wheels off we lowered the rig back to level as it was before we starting jacking, thus taking the tilt and strain of the opposite side of the rig and suspension. This also made access easier to all the springs. We put a small jack under the axle and lifted only the weight of the axle (on the U-bolt) to relieve the spring stress on hanger bolts and Moryde. We then blocked under the Moryde and used a 6 ton jack to lift one side of the Moryde at a time directly under the Z-brackets. This was hugely successful, and resulted in easy removal of the old shackles. After the shackles were off we used the axle jack to lift the axle up enough to remove the spring hanger bolts. These required a bit of heavy beating because of the knurled collar next to the bolt head being pressed into the hanger. We put nut back on that bolt about 4 or 5 threads to so the beating (3 lb maul) would not destroy the threads in case we needed it later(we didn't). Once these were loose from the hanger they just slid right out with a little jack adjustment. As Dexter told us we installed the new bushings in the hanger ends of the springs first. This involved lowering the axle so the spring end dropped just below the hanger. We cleaned out of the old nylon bushing and oiled the inside of the spring where the bushing went. We used one of the old bolts that had the knurled shoulder worn off (and there are usually a few of them. We put the bolt through one of the old shackle plate holes (make sure it is not a worn shackle plate) and then through a bushing. We tapped the new bushing through the spring end eye until the plate hit the spring. We then removed the bolt and checked the bushing clearance with one of the new wet bolts. We did purchase a 9/16 inch ream just in case and only needed it twice. We then lifted the axle spring assembly back up to align with the hole in the spring hanger and installed the bolt and nut. We had to "Reef" down on the nut pretty hard and never did get the new knurled bolt shoulder all the way through the spring hanger. However the nut was tight against the shoulder on the nut end of the bolt. Dave will keep an eye on those to avoid a similar problem as H. John Kohl had with his.
Once the spring hangers were complete we went to the Moryde units. We Removed the old Z-bracket bolts and saved them since Dexter MorRyde neglected new bolts with the new Z-brackets. The easiest method of removing these bolts is to use an impact wrench on the bottom bolt first then jack the opposite of the MorRyde until the upper bolt came into range of the impact socket. We installed the new Z-bracket in reverse order. Lastly we installed the new shackles. To do this we placed a jack under the side of the Moryde that we wanted to align and jacked it up till the shackle bolts just slide in. There was no pounding and this took no time at all. We spun on the nuts and everything aligned easily. We then jacked the rig back up so we could re-install the tires and finished the entire job. Elapsed time per side was 2 hours.
Link to Slide show I hope this helps those that need help. Here is an additional
Link to the entire album with better descriptions. P.S. NCFischer if you haven't done yours yet let me know we will be there in about 4 or 5 days, and Jaybird keep an eye out for us also... Dave and Betsy
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