Started the real work on the suspension today. Most of the stuff is coming off without any trouble although some of it is giving a good fight. I'm following the instructions for the RE 4.5 kit even though I have a piecemeal kit that is based on the 3.5 springs, but the 4.5 kit is the closest match to what I have, and I figure they know the best order by now.
Measurements from center of wheel to bottom of flare was 17.5" front and 15.5" rear, so leafs are sagged but the front was in okay condition. I took a couple of poser shots and you can see that the front had a lot of uptravel and the rears compressed pretty well.
Front shocks came off surprisingly easy. I thought the nuts in the engine bay would be really hard to get at but they came off easy. I can't make out what kind of shocks these are but they are obviously pretty old. They still have action.
Swaybar links also came off pretty easy once I got the cheater pipe working. Interestingly the pressed-in torx studs twisted free during removal, so I did not have to fight them either.
Track bar also came out easily once I figured out what to remove--I damn near twisted one of the weld nuts off.
With all that out of the way I was able to use a pry bar to pop the springs out. Here are the stockers next to the RE 3.5 coils.
Up til now everything more or less went well. But from here on out there was some fighting. First the brake fittings are corroded where the hard and soft llines meet and they do not want to come off. For now I've bent the line, but I will have to cut and flare the hard line, or drill and attach the line. I'll deal with that later when the new stuff is installed.
The tie rod came off alright, but the stabilzer ripped through the bushing when it was removed. I have replacements for both so I don't care about the damage here, but the stabilizer sleeve is still on the drag link.
The drag link will not come off the Pittman arm. I've shredded the TRE on it with pickle fork, beat on it, nothing is working. I want to get it off so I can drop the axle to the ground but at this point I am tempted to leave it in place and deal with it after the new lift parts are installed. I may will try disconnecting the long and short TREs so I can focus on the Pittman end with no stress on the long link (short is $10, long is $80). The stabilizer bushing sleeve is still attached too... Figures that since I didn't buy a new drag link this one is getting destroyed.
I also spent some time trying to turn some of the control arm nuts but ran out of daylight and didn't want to push my luck. With some luck I will get the front removed and reinstalled tomorrow. As of now I have about 5 hours into it.
