I spent most of the day replacing a shock absorber on my truck.  It took me from 9 to 6 to replace one shock absorber.  One shock absorber!

I quickly learned there’s a lot of rust on suspension parts which ‘welds’ them together.  Suspension parts are also in awkward places.  Finally, it took two trips to the auto parts store to get the right shocks.

I felt like, and acted like, the new guy today.  I made every mistake in the book and wouldn’t be surprised if I came up with some new ones.

The only way to learn how to replace shocks is by doing it.  It’s not the same as reading the repair manual or watching a YouTube video.  I was bound to make mistakes, mistakes I had to make to learn, mistakes I’ll never make again.

In life there are mistakes you have to make.  Whether it’s your first time changing shocks, your first bank account, your first relationship.  There are mistakes we all have to make to learn and move forward.

If you’re replacing shocks in a 2002 Dodge Ram 2500 (1) use an impact wrench to remove the top bolt; (2) take off the tire before you try to loosen the bottom bolt and (3) if you need to replace a nut on the shock tower they’re metric M10-1.5 not standard 3/8-16.

Lessons learned!