Shock Replacement

kenewagner

Registered User
I am replacing the front and rear shocks this weekend. The rear shocks seem to be an easy replacement. Does anyone have a step by step proceedure for the front ones. I ordered a shop manual for my 93 SC but it has not arived yet.
 
Front end shocks

I have a good tip for you regarding the front suspension.

I was new to front end work until recently, so this may be obvious to everyone else.

If you try to use a "pickle fork" to seperate the lower control arm ball joint - you will ruin the seal and they dont sell seals. That means you are buying new ball joints and having them pressed in too. You'll need a special tool to remove them properly (I couldn't find one anywhere). I've heard of people doing this: 1. loosen the ball joint nut a few turns, get a big bar and figure out a way to pry down on the lower arm while you pound the heck out of the spindle where ball joint attaches. I couldn't get it off this way.

You could probably avoid the whole ball joint scene by taking the spindle loose from the upper arm at the pinch bolt. This should give you enough room to pry the lower arm out of the sub-frame and muscle it out of the way to get the shock/spring out. ( You'll need to hang it on something too)

If these are origonal front end parts I'd plan on spraying those nuts down with something, then having a beer prior to removal.

If it's not too late, you should try to pick up a set of strut rod bushings where the tension strut connects to the lower control arm. It's common for these to disintegrate faster than some of the other parts down there. Mine were basically gone.

If it all goes bad, just buy new lower control arms with the bushings and ball joint already pressed in. As opposed to bying the pieces and having them pressed.

Cheers
MB
 
There are a couple different types of ball joint removal tools. I'm not sure which one would work best.

Here is one fromJC Whitney :

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Note you shouldn't have to pound the heck out of it while prying on it. Best to have help, and make sure you are using the proper hammer. A 3lb sledge will work well. It requires a sharp RAP type strike to shock the metal. They prying is used to apply pressure in the direction you want the object to move, but also to isolate the motion of the arm so that the energy from the hit isn't absorbed by something other than the ball joint.

If you don't sufficiently isolate the arm so that the energy isn't disappated, you could end up pounding the heck out of it and getting no where.

I would agree to try and avoid having to take that part loose unless you need to.
 
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