After a few trips of driving the truck, it was obvious the rear shocks were not doing what they were supposed to. It bounced after every whoop and bump in the road, even just on pavement. To the point of launching things off horizontal surfaces. The truck does have 107k on it now, and the shocks do look original.
So a new set was ordered. I settled on Bilstein 5100 series shocks. They are a good quality monotube, that don’t cost a fortune.
I crawled under, wiggled my way into a sitting position and got to work. Luckily the old ones came right out (one upside of having an oil leak I guess, not much rust). They collapsed completely by hand and didn’t rebound at all. Definitely garbage at this point.
The new ones went in fine, they were much harder to get in place, as what do you know they had a gas charge and wanted to extend themselves with much force! But with a little help from my wife and a floor jack both sides were in place.
Driving is MUCH better, so much so I want to do the fronts too, as you can feel them bounce a little now that the rear end is controlled. A good upgrade, especially to old worn out shocks.