2007 Suburban 2500 Suspension torque specs?

[RTCburb]

Does anyone have torque specs for suspension components for these trucks? I'm finding widely conflicting info out on the net.

I'm replacing my front Bilstein 5100's with Fox 2.0's as soon as I find the torque specs. I may well end up replacing the rears as well, but I do a lot of trailering with this truck. As in it spends most of Oct - Feb with a trailer attached. So for now I'm going Frankenstein with the Fox on the front & 5100's on the rear.

I'd also love to hear any other suggestions for ride improvement. Already replaced E rated tires with XL's and reset my TPMS limits. Will probably replace sway bar end links, just cause. Not expecting much of any ride impact unless I'm missing something. Every fall this trucks gets run on 100's of miles of Forest Service and I'm too old to keep beating a kidney out.

Thanks,
Bob

 

[B-train]

For shocks, good and tight works. Just a few ugga-dugga's on the 1/2" impact is good enough. You're just trying to hold it in place, squish the tabs close to the bushing and viola! You don't want to squeeze the bushing to death, it needs some movement. I would assume it has a metal insert to prevent this from happening.

Torque wrenches haven their place, and I use them when needed. Generally for systems like this, running down the fastener until it bottoms and is snug, then add just a smidgen more for good measure seems to work fine.

Sorry this wasn't very technical, just what I've done for years.

 

[noodlesandsam2]

It wouid be good to have bump stops replaced - Priority would be front. I have to do mine.

 

[RTCburb]

It wouid be good to have bump stops replaced - Priority would be front. I have to do mine.

Thanks. I checked that one off the list some time ago.

Best info I could find on the net was Bilstein's installation instructions. Had to teach myself to read German quick, but I think I found the guideline I'm going with. For my shocks it appears they recommend 19 ft-lbs top & 54 ft-lbs bottom. Some info I found geared towards 2500 HD's with the same suspension arrangement generally confirm those numbers.

So the reality is, not very tight at all on top, which makes sense to me.

 

[RTCburb]

Forgot to add: for other's future reference, everything credible I found says not to torque down the top nuts till truck is back on the ground.

 

[Bigburb3500]

Just did rear shocks on my Suburban 3500 last weekend and I was struggling with this topic as well. I settled on 87ft/lb for rear (top and bottom) with 35ft/lb and 57ft/lbs (top and bottom) for front. But in the end with how the suspension is setup I think the “tight enough” is sufficient. The Silverado HD forums also supports this for torque specs.

 

[RTCburb]

Just did rear shocks on my Suburban 3500 last weekend and I was struggling with this topic as well. I settled on 87ft/lb for rear (top and bottom) with 35ft/lb and 57ft/lbs (top and bottom) for front. But in the end with how the suspension is setup I think the “tight enough” is sufficient. The Silverado HD forums also supports this for torque specs.

I just checked my top nut size and it is 17mm on the Bilsteins as opposed to the 15mm I kept find on the net, which makes the threads M12 instead of M10. Based on that, Bilstein spec would be 34 ft-lbs. Interestingly, the Fox top nut is 19mm.

Thanks for helping me catch that.