So the FOX 2.5 Factory Series Front Coilover Reservoir Shocks are currently some of the
best shocks available, if you own an '09 to '18 four-wheel drive equipped F-150, rolling
on a factory ride height up to a 2-inch lift.
And I say that for a couple of reasons.
Now for starters, we are working with a 2-1/2 inch body and reservoir.
And that sounds like pretty standard fare.
And that's where the standard stuff ends.
If you take a quick look at the shock, you'll see that we're working with some pretty cool
coatings and platings.
Specifically, we got some nice zinc coatings, we got a nice chrome plating on the tube itself,
and we got some nice anodized finish on all that aluminum everywhere, as opposed to the
factory shock's painted finish.
But I'll show you guys more on that in a little bit.
We're also working with some adjustable Eibach springs.
Those spring rates are specifically designed for the lighter F-150.
And that spring is adjustable so you can dial things, even though this is not equipped with
the FOX DSC adjustments Now, besides that, we're also working with a redundant three
seal setup, so this thing will never leak on you, no matter how hard you put it through
its paces.
We got a main seal there, then we got a wiper seal and a scraper seal.
And obviously, we got the external reservoir, that increases our fluid capacity, that prevents
overheating and cavitation, and overall fade as far as damping goes.
Now, as far as pricing goes, yes, these guys are obviously on the higher end of the pricing
spectrum.
But as far as external reservoir shocks go, and as far as adjustable shocks go, these
guys are actually a little bit less expensive than some of the other comparable options.
Specifically, I'm talking about the Icon Dynamic shocks with external reservoirs, as well as
the same shocks from FOX, that include the DSC adjustments on top of the adjustments
that this already provides.
So you are saving a little bit of money if you spring for these guys over those other
options, no pun intended.
And on the bottom of that shock, we're also working with an upgraded spherical bearing,
which is a huge upgrade over that factory rubber bushing, but I'll get to that in a
little bit when we pull that factory strut off of there.
I'll show you guys a comparison and dive into that a little bit further.
And lastly, of course, we got those preload adjustments for up to that 2-inch lift, so
everything will be dialed in nicely no matter what ride height you are working with.
Now, as far as the install goes, it's pretty straightforward.
It is technically a bolt-on job but we are working with some primary suspension components
and you're gonna need a decent amount of tools here.
So for that reason, I'm gonna give the install a modest two out of three wrenches on my difficulty
meter.
Should take you about two to four hours to get both sides done and I'm actually going
to show you guys the install step by step.
So again, if you're looking for arguably the most capable shocks for the front of your
F-150 so you can run it hard pretty much on a daily basis off-road, you should be checking
out the FOX 2.5 series.
And if you want to pull the trigger on these guys, stick around.
I'm going to show you guys what tools you need in just a second and then we'll get started
on that install.
All right, guys, we're definitely breaking out the toolbox for this one.
To start off, you're gonna need some safety glasses and a hammer.
You're gonna need some standard drive ratchets, and you're gonna need a 5/16 and a 10-millimeter
socket.
You're also gonna need a bunch of deep sockets including a 13, a 15, an 18, a 19, a 13/16,
a 21, a 22, and potentially a 27-millimeter deep socket.
You'll need some wrenches including a 17, 18, and 13/16 wrench.
And it's helpful to have a breaker bar and a pry bar with you.
Now, you might need an air hammer for this one.
You're definitely going to need a 7/32 drill bit with a cordless drill and it's always
helpful to have an air gun and an impact swivel for some of those bigger things.
All right, guys, before we start actually breaking apart our suspension components,
we want to take a little bit of weight off of here because we're going to be moving all
this stuff around.
So we want to remove our caliper and we're also going to take some slack on this little
line here.
So to remove that bracket, you'll need a 5/16 socket.
And then to remove the caliper, you'll need a 13-millimeter socket.
All right, next we're gonna loosen our tie rod end here.
You're gonna need a 13/16 wrench for this guy.
And if the stud starts spinning on, you'll need a 10-millimeter socket for the bottom
of it.
All right, once you've removed that nut, if the stud is stuck inside of the knuckle, you
can just give a good tap on here with a hammer and that should free it up.
All right, next, we're going to tackle our ball joint here.
This is an 18-millimeter nut.
If this guy starts spinning on you, you're gonna need an 8-millimeter socket for this
stud.
All right, next, we can finally start removing our strut.
We have to tackle the two nuts securing it to the lower control arm.
We'll need an 18-millimeter deep socket for these.
All right, next, we're going to tackle the top of the strut here.
Now, normally these would be hex head nuts on top between 15 and 18-millimeters.
But because we have a spacer lift on here, these are actually Allen head bolts.
So I'm using a 5/16 Allen key to tackle these.
And now it is a bit of a squeeze in here whether you're tackling those hex head nuts or Allen
head bolts depending on your setup.
So you'll probably have to use hand tools.
It might take you a minute, just gotta take your time.
All right, now once you've tackled the top of the strut, normally you should be able
to get enough movement in there in the lower control arm to pop it out.
But since we have that spacer in place, things are still a little bit tight.
So we're actually gonna loosen the end link on our sway bar.
And for that, you're gonna need an 18-millimeter deep socket.
All right, so we loosened our sway bar end link and we're still running into a little
bit of a clearance issue with getting the strut out.
That's okay.
We're actually going to loosen the bolts and nuts on our lower control arms and you might
run into this issue whether or not you have a spacer lift on your truck.
But at any rate, we're going to break out the big guns here.
For the nut on the end of the bolt on the lower control, you'll need a 27-millimeter
socket.
All right, so we loosened the bolts and nuts on our lower control arm.
But unfortunately, we are still running into some clearance issues with getting the strut
out of there.
Now the bolts on the bottom of the strut are actually press fit.
So we're going to use an air hammer to knock those loose.
Now, if you get to this point, these things are pretty loud.
You're going to want to have some hearing protection and some eye protection if you
get to this point.
All right, now when I go to air hammer this, I'm keeping the nut on the end of the bolt
here.
That way, we're not going to mushroom this out too badly.
All right, now that we got that one bolt out, we put a through bolt here with a nut on the
end to secure the strut.
Now we're going to tackle the other side.
We're going to loosen this nut, keep it flush with the end of the bolt so that doesn't mushroom.
All right, once you've popped the bolt loose, you can take the nut off the end.
It should slide out just like so.
All right, so we finally got those bolts out of the strut.
We should have enough clearance with a little bit of help from my pry bar to get that strut
out of there.
Go ahead and shove it underneath the tongue where the bolts were, pry up on it, and you
should be able to clear the lower control arm.
All right, so we finally got our factory strut removed.
We got the new FOX 2.5 Series sitting next to it.
Now you guys can actually see a good comparison between the two.
And you can pretty much see how I mentioned earlier, we're definitely going from mild
to wild in pretty much every aspect, right?
Visually speaking, this just has a painted finish on it.
We're going with some really nice chrome, zinc, black anodized finishes on here.
These finishes will take some real abuse when you do take your truck off-road so you don't
gotta worry about this thing rusting out on you or looking ugly anytime soon.
Now as far as functionality is concerned, something I like about this shock in terms
of actual control off-road, we're getting rid of those soft rubber bushings, right?
Those things are great at handling noise, vibration, and harshness or NVH.
But if you get a lot of suspension articulation, it can kind of make that rebound a little
unpredictable.
That's not the case here.
We got spherical bearings on this guy.
While that might increase noise, vibration, and harshness just a slight amount, the damping
on this thing is awesome, so it should help with that.
And it's going to help with that rebound and predicting how the truck is going to feel
off-road.
And then, of course, the big star of the show here, we got that external reservoir.
That's a 2-1/2 inch body as well as the shock itself.
And you got our brackets right there.
I'm going to show you guys where those go in just a second.
I don't need to talk your ear off anymore.
If you guys committed to these, you already know how amazing they are, for lack of better
phrasing.
So let's go ahead and get this new one bolted up.
All right, guys, so each of the FOX shocks are actually designed for one side of the
truck, left and right side.
However, when you go to throw it in, you might notice that the tongues here where the through
bolts are supposed to go through the lower control arm might be oriented in the wrong
direction.
So, easy way to fix that, go ahead and grab a vise.
You want to be very careful with this.
You don't want to scratch these or mar these up too much, especially the holes where the
bolts go through.
But secured in a vise with a cloth right there, then you can actually use the entire shock
as leverage and rotate it and that should rotate these in the correct orientation so
we can get those bolts in the lower control arm.
All right, so we got the fittings on the end here rotated.
We're finally ready to throw it in place.
So we're going to throw it in place and then we're actually going to secure the top before
we secure the lower control arm.
There are three nuts on top of here with flat washers and you'll need a 17-millimeter wrench
for these guys.
All right, so we got those three nuts in place.
We're gonna leave those hand-tight for now.
We're not going to tighten them down just yet.
We want a little bit of play in the shock, that way we can actually get the bolts on
the bottom there, through that lower control arm.
All right, so we got a jack underneath our lower control arm, that way we can kind of
close the gap here between the bottom of the shock and the lower control arm.
We're going to get one of these bolts in here, hand tighten it.
Then we can throw the other one in and get that jack out of the way.
All right, now that we have the bottom tightened down, we can tighten down these nuts on top.
Again, you'll need that 17-millimeter wrench.
All right, so our strut is in place.
We tightened down all our hardware.
Before we actually secure the reservoir, we want to make sure all of our suspension components
are going to play nice together.
So we're going to reassemble everything.
We're going to get that sway bar end link tightened down.
We're going to throw our tie rod end into the knuckle, then we're gonna get our ball
joint seated again.
All right, if that starts spinning on you like it just did for me, you can grab that
socket and put it on the end of the stud there.
Tighten it in the opposite direction and that'll tighten that nut to the ball joint.
All right, with all our suspension components in place, we're gonna throw a caliper back
on.
And again, you'll need a 13-millimeter socket to get the bolts back on it.
All right, we're also going to resecure this little plastic bracket here as well.
And you'll need a 5/16 socket for the bolt.
All right, if you did end up having to loosen your lower control arm nuts and bolts, go
ahead and make sure you tighten those again.
And again, you'll need a 27-millimeter socket for the nut.
All right, now that everything's back together, we're finally ready to mount our reservoir.
Now the bracket for the reservoir is going to go in this location right here.
The instructions mention that there's some sort of body mount right here with a factory
bolt and that bolt would normally secure this hole on the bracket.
But since that's not there, we're actually going to get a little creative here.
We're actually going to throw a speed clip in place and we're going to use an M10 bolt
to secure the one side.
Then once we get the bracket lined up, I'll show you guys how to drill that other hole
for the other one.
All right, now we're going to drill a pilot hole for our self-tapping screws.
You're going to need a 7/32 drill bit for this one.
All right, now that our hole is drilled and cleaned up, we can install that self-tapping
screw.
You can use a 10-millimeter socket to get [inaudible 00:14:30].
All right, now that are bracket is in place, we can throw our reservoir up there.
Go ahead and throw one of your hose clamps on the end right here and line it up with
this little opening in the bracket itself.
You're not going to have the clamps go through these, rather, you're gonna have them go behind
them.
Once you tighten them down, the little notch in the bracket will keep them in place.
And once you got everything situated, you can tighten down these clamps using an 8-millimeter
socket.
So once you got the reservoir in place, if you need to make any adjustments to your preload,
go ahead and open up the install guide that came in the kit itself.
It'll actually tell you exactly what tools you need.
You will probably need a spring compressor and it'll give you the steps on what you need
to do to tackle that mainspring retainer to make those preload adjustments.
But that actually wraps up the install itself.
Now, that also wraps up my review of the FOX 2.5 Factory Series Front Coilover Reservoir
Shocks, for up to a 2-inch lift, fitting your '09 to '18, four-wheel drive, equipped F-150.
I'm Travis, thanks for watching.
And for all things F-150, keep it right here at americantrucks.com.