Hello all,
The shocks are done. The top right and both bottom rear bolts were a little rusted; they broke loose under reasonable effort, but were clearly not happy being removed quickly. Somebody here said to work the nut back and forth adding some penetrating oil, and that worked well. At least for my model (96 F150 XL), a ratcheting 15 mm wrench is highly recommended. I found no way to get a deep socket over the top bolts.
Giving Hayne's proper credit, supporting the radius arm worked well. With the wires in place, the shocks were just long enough to fit the bolt through the hole on top, and to bolt at the bottom. Cutting the wire then raised the shock enough to thread the top bolt.
The worst part was removing the old top bushings in front. They were apparently made as one piece, or just plain fused into one piece. Either way, I finally resorted to some careful stabs (at the "neck") with a utility knife, which weakened them enough to remove w/o breaking loose and smacking the brake line.
I saw very little reason to raise the rear, so I took it up just enough to get the axle in hard contact with a jack stand - never know when a valve stem might give out =:0 Perhaps because I did not follow instructions, the shock lengths were not as forgiving. I decided to slide the bushing over the top bolt, and then cut the wire to extend the shock to reach the bottom bracket; I had a screwdriver waiting there as a pry bar to align the bushing with the bolt holes.
On parts store advice, I torqued the nuts/bolts bearing on brackets to
30-35 ft-lbs. The nuts compressing bushings all reached a point of sharply increasing resistance; I stopped at that point. Let me know if I should back off or keep going.Thanks,
Bill