I put on front shocks last night, not without problems. I cut the tip of the top of the shock to access it with a socket wrench. Big no no. The nut twisted with the shock. Took 3 hours to cut it off with a Dremel due to poor access on the driver side. The other side took about 30 min to do completely. Grab the top of the shock with a visegrip. Use a close or open wrench to loosen the nut. Took 2 min to get the nut off the passenger side. The rest went in pretty easy afterward. So DO NOT CUT ANYTHING!
My 2 cents.

John