Ford Super Duty
Squeaky Leaf Springs
2004 F250 4x4 XLT Sport Crew Cab
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From what I've been reading, if you have a Super Duty pickup truck, you'll likely have squeaky leaf springs at some point. Actually, if you do a web search for "squeaking leaf springs" you'll find these complaints for any type of truck with leaf springs.
For the 1999-2000 Super Duty trucks, there's actually a TSB 99-16-3 where the fix is an upgraded leaf spring isolator kit, part number 1C3Z5B302-AA. Apparently Ford changed the spring design after 2000 so this kit wasn't exactly the fix for mine. The fix actually turned out to be simply replacing the spring rub pads.
Here's a good thread on FTE describing this kit -- Front Suspension Squeak/Creak, Does Yours
From what I'm told, any spring shop should have these pads available for less than $1/ea. Well, I don't know of a spring shop within a reasonable distance to me and the best price I could find online was $5/ea + shipping. So, I implemented a temporary fix until I can get to a spring shop.
I started by inspecting the spring rub pads on the front springs.
Jack up the truck so that the axle, spring, and tire hang freely. I used the "lower bumper" mount as a jacking point. You know, the lower bumper that you can't really see that Ford had to put there to keep us from driving over top of small cars in the event of a head on collision?
Once the suspension is hanging free, drive a chisel between the leaves to provide enough separation to gain access to the rub pad. Be careful to keep your fingers out of there, that chisel can slip out pretty quick!
These pics show the rear pad for the front driver's side spring.
Here's the pad. It is very thin and was VERY dirty/rusty before I cleaned it up. I suspect some of the squeaks were caused by the metal-on-rusty pad motion.
Since I didn't have new pads, I decided to implement a temporary fix by cutting a "donut" out of some 1/8" thick teflon material that I had laying around. I'll use this to beef up the original pad until I can find some new ones.
Here it is in place.
Before removing the chisel, I sprayed a generous amount of CRC heavy duty silicone spray in there.
Here's the modified pad in place after removing the chisel. I repeated this process for the other three pads on the front springs. They were all the same as this one, except for the passenger side rear pad, which I will discuss below.
Now for the "main squeaker" that I found. This is the pad on the rear of the passenger side front spring. Definite metal-on-metal contact in this case!
I couldn't use the original pad with the donut so I snagged one from an old set of springs I had laying around.
Here's the pic after installation.
This seemed to do the trick! My truck is quiet again. I can still barely hear some squeaking from the rear springs so at some point I'll probably do the same thing to them. But this fix cured about 90% of my squeaking.
I intend to find the right pads at some point and I'll post up pics of those when I do.
*** UPDATED 03/31/10 *** Installed new OEM spring pads on the front.
Well, I decided to just go ahead with OEM spring pads, Ford part number 2C3Z-5586-AA, at around $4/ea.
For the front springs, I just repeated the above steps only I put in the new pads.
Next up is the rear spring pads.
I jacked up the rear as shown.
Same process as described above, except spreading the springs on the rear is MUCH easier.
The rears weren't near as bad as the fronts, hence them not squeaking near as bad.
Here's the new one in place.
I replaced the rest of them in the rear and they all looked about the same as the one posted previously.
Questions or Comments? Email jmray@frontiernet.net