ScottMT,
I'll add a few things to try and help you sort this out. Not sure of the background of your camper, but if you are replacing the springs, there is some reason telling you to do this.
Here are a few tips dealing with the springs, wet bolts, and shocks that may help if you are trying to set up the camper for a longer life.
Look at the eyes on the ends of your new springs to see if they are curled and closed tight fit to the main leaf. There should be no gap in the end curl. I have seen some as bad as a 1/8" gap when brand new, which is a junk spring in my view. While they sell many with a gap, and use the standard nylon bushings in them, the setup is poor and will not be long-lasting. The nylon will swedge/extrude into that gap and the life of the bushing wears even faster. The standard nylon start wearing through in many cases between 8,000 to 10,000 miles. Not that long. Once the bushing is worn through even with no gap, you are grinding spring pin on spring and the spring eye then becomes oval and wallored out unevenly across the width of the spring.
By going with the bronze bushings with wet bolts, this is a very worthwhile upgrade. They are much longer lasting but do need to be greased often. Every 3,000 miles is a good marker, 5,000 would be about my limit.
The bronze bushing however needs help to last longer. The thin wall bushing needs 100% support on the OD surface of the bushing to not crack. The spring eyes with a gap are the first to start a crack in the thin wall bushing. It's not the bushing's fault, it is the bore in the spring that supports the OD of the bushing.
You can also get bronze cracks at the ends of the bushing from a large leaf edge radius at the start of the eye bore. Again, the spring eye having that large lead-in radius creates a gap at the end of the bronze bushing that is 1 3/4" wide. The bronze will start to crack in the unsupported bronze.
You are sort of at the mercy of the spring quality you buy. Even with the cracks from not being 100% supported, which can come in time from the unsupported bronze, the bronze is still better than the nylon. I'm past 40,000 miles on the bronze bushings I put in. While my spring eyes are tight, a few of spring eyes have a large radius issue at the start of the spring eye bore, and the bushing cracks right there. I have replaced those areas once already but the rest remain in good service.
When you install the wet bolts, make sure the grease hole is pointing to 3:00 or 9:00 location (horizontal). If the hole is more vertical, pending on how heavy your camper is, your normal grease gun will not have enough pressure to lift the camper's weight off the grease hole and allow more grease to get it.
Think about changing to 90-degree or 45-degree grease fittings and have the fitting on the outside so you do not have to crawl under the camper to grease them.
Make sure the heads of the spring pins will not spin in the hanger, if the holes in the hangers are ovalized and won't hold the spring pin head serrations, deal with the hanger to get the head to not spin. There are a few ways to stop the pin from spinning depending on how bad the holes are. A spinning pin will create an issue in the hangers as the miles add up. Make sure you hold the wet bolt head in a box wrench etc. when tightening or taking off the nut or you can strip out the serrations.
The shocks, I added the Monroe Magnum gas shocks in late 2010/early 2011. I have only had one with a seal leak since the original install, and I'm still using them. These do spring push out when in the open not bolted in place.
The angle of the shock and the way it is mounted is an issue in the RV industry. Some brands, straight from the factory, mount them close to horizontal and they are not very effective that way. Monroe states the slight angle range from vertical is how they should mounted. Even if you go to the Monroe shocks and they are mounted too close to horizontal, they will not be very effective.
Back when I mounted mine, Monroe did not offer mounts for the shocks so I had to make my own and then deal with how to get them mounted to contend with a heated tank compartment. I did not have enough clearance to mount them on the outside of the frame, so I mounted them more inboard.
This post with pics of my setup may help.
https://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/24776971/srt/pa/pging/1/page/1 If you plan to keep the camper for a long time and you are towing it, a good set of shocks helps save the camper. In my view, they are worth it. It dramatically cuts down on the entire frame flexing and camper walls, the tires, etc. If time is a problem, use the current shocks, but consider coming back and upgrading later.
Good luck, and hope this helps
John
2005 Ford F350 Super Duty, 4x4; 6.8L V10 with 4.10 RA, 21,000 GCWR, 11,000 GVWR, upgraded 2 1/2" Towbeast Receiver. Hitched with a 1,700# Reese HP WD, HP Dual Cam to a 2004 Sunline Solaris T310R travel trailer.
