strut rod bushing?

Did you preload the bushings before tightening them? Best bet at this point as it is a DD is to take it to a shop and have them give you the pre inspection printout and then align it and get a post inspection print out.

They can be squirrely after a bushing swap. A sure way to correct it is to take it in and get laser alignment. 4 Wheel alignment. Shop may say it doesnt need it, but when they get it on the rack and see the IRS they will do it.

Im not sure what preload is, i just put them on and tightened it all down
 
Maybe. If the brake pull went away, then we'll have to just note it for the books. (There aren't really any books, but the point is made) :) My black car had some chewed up bushings too, but didn't have any braking problems.

Im beginning to think my braking issue is the abs hydraulic unit
 
The front end is extremely floaty, dunno if it matters but the bushings i got were the solid rubber duralast from auto zone, and both sides strut rod to lca were done
Floaty is usually the shocks. My white car has a "more" floaty front ride because the shocks are that AMG-blah-blah part number. My red and black cars both have Tokico's so all 4 corners bounce the same and the normal ride is firmer.

My best ride is with my Black car with the Tokico lowering springs & shocks with shocks set on firm. Its settled and aggressive and has the best road feel. You top a hill and it has 1 settling motion and thats it. No bounce. :cool:
 
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Floaty is usually the shocks. My white car has a "more" floaty front ride because the shocks are that AMG-blah-blah part number. My red and black cars both have Tokico's so all 4 corners bounce the same and the normal ride is firmer.

My best ride is with my Black car with the Tokico lowering springs & shocks with shocks set on firm. Its settled and aggressive and has the best road feel. You top a hill and it has 1 settling motion and thats it. No bounce. :cool:

Im sure my shocks are worn.. but whatever this is wasnt present before i did the bushings and re align. Something is just not right with it
 
Whats worse is, now my wheels are turned slihtly to the right when steering wheel is straight,
Take it back to them and tell them to do it right! As much as it indignifies them, I ALWAYS ask them if they center the wheel when they do an alignment. The crappy cheap shops usually don't unless you make them aware of what you want. I honestly don't know why they try to pawn shoddy work off like that, but it is absolutely not F-ing acceptable.

i went over the bridge on the way back every time i hit a joint in the bridge the steering gets all crazy and wants to turn... Please help!! The bridge scared the sh** out of me i had to go 30 over it. Wth did i do to my car?
Or what did the shop do to it? Twitchy steering can be made worse if the caster is set wrong. Don't overlook the rear suspension either.

Did you ever try swapping front wheels R<>L to see if its tire or wheel related?
 
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The car sitting higher then it did before the work?

The LCAs need to have pressure on them when they are tightened. Easy way is to take a floor jack and lift up on the LCA or the hub assembly and that will preload them and then tighten them.
 
Ask them when the last time was they had the machine calibrated? If it wasn't within the last 6 months ask for your money back and go somewhere else.

The printing of numbers is always the excuse used. If they can't provide me with a piece of paper I can't pay them.
 
Ok so I took the SC to a different Pep Boys and told them the whole story. As soon as they got the car up on the lift one of the techs grabbed the service manager and told him he couldn't do an alignment on my car. So he brought me in the shop bay where my car was located and showed me extremely worn lower ball joints, the whole wheel on both sides lift up an inch or more. Hopefully this is the issue, I just picked up 2 new lower bj's and a bj press from advance. The guy at the second pep boys was awesome, told me to bring it back after i do the ball joints, they'll re align everything for free and make sure the steering wheel gets centered. Maybe I just never noticed the worn out bj's because of the bad strut rod bushings? I dunno..
 
Any words of advice for doing the lower ball joints? I'd love to be able to accomplish this job without having to do any cutting, mainly because I have no tools to do so lol
 
Ok so I took the SC to a different Pep Boys and told them the whole story. As soon as they got the car up on the lift one of the techs grabbed the service manager and told him he couldn't do an alignment on my car. So he brought me in the shop bay where my car was located and showed me extremely worn lower ball joints, the whole wheel on both sides lift up an inch or more. Hopefully this is the issue, I just picked up 2 new lower bj's and a bj press from advance. The guy at the second pep boys was awesome, told me to bring it back after i do the ball joints, they'll re align everything for free and make sure the steering wheel gets centered. Maybe I just never noticed the worn out bj's because of the bad strut rod bushings? I dunno..

From the description of how the car drives, it sounds like the alignment is messed up. But if the parts are as worn as you say, then the first shop had no business aligning it. Why did the guy at the first Pep Boys align the car when the ball joints were dangerously worn out? Wheel lifts up an inch or more? You mean if you pry between the ball joint and the spindle? That's insane. But not as insane as aligning the car that way.

(I have found that getting the cheapest alignment is usually the most expensive in the long run. Because they can't make any money if they do it properly, they put the newest, lowest-paid mechanic on it and hurry him through it. I would estimate that a proper 4-wheel alignment should take 1.5 to 3 hours. So multiply that by the shop rate and that's what a good alignment should cost. $100-$300 maybe, but certainly not $50.)

As for replacing the ball joints, since this is your daily driver, you need to be loaded for bear. You may have trouble separating the ball joint from the spindle. A pickle fork may not do it. But regardless of how you do it, you need to be sure that you can get the nut off the stud once you do break the spindle free. Otherwise, you will just spin the ball joint around and around, you can't loosen it, and you can't tighten it back up. Not fun. So remove the nuts all the way before you try breaking the ball joint free. (I recommend cleaning the threads before anything else.) Then put the nuts back on a couple threads to restrain the joint. Then you will have to pop out the ball joints. A pickle fork may or may not work. You may want to borrow or buy a ball joint separator and/or a large pitman arm puller. Like this:

http://www.zorotools.com/g/00057394/k-G0838187
or
http://www.tooldiscounter.com/ItemDisplay.cfm?lookup=OTC7314A



Also, if I recall correctly, in your first thread about the brake pull, the strut rod bushings were the first possibility brought up.

From the pictures, it's hard to tell how worn out the stock ones really are. Obviously, cracks in the rubber are not supposed to be there. But it's hard to say how much they would have contributed without seeing them in person.

As you can see, the aftermarket replacements are designed differently. They don't have any steel-to-rubber bonds, so they don't work quite the same way. I wouldn't be surprised if they changed the ride and handling of the car a little bit.
 
Any words of advice for doing the lower ball joints? I'd love to be able to accomplish this job without having to do any cutting, mainly because I have no tools to do so lol
Yeah. They have them at Oreillys. They make a tool that will unseat (but otherwise wreck) an old ball joint and seat the new one. Its basically a HUGE C clamp so you'll need breakerbar type leverage. I advise leaving the control arm mounted on the car.

There is a Ford "adapter" tool for Tauruses, but I don't recall that it provided any benefit for me when I replaced my Tbird ball joints. I mention it not because I'm stupid and can't spell Taurus vs. Thunderbird, but rather because it provided a longer shell that might fit over the BJ stud. This was one reason the first tool wrecks the old BJ.

The BFH works good for loosening the old BJ stud from the spindle. But... you have to swing it and (most importantly)... you have to HIT :rolleyes: the stud with the BFH. Easier said than done. For that reason, I recommend the pitman arm puller tool.
 
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Wheel lifts up an inch or more? You mean if you pry between the ball joint and the spindle? That's insane. But not as insane as aligning the car that way.
No kidding.. an inch? The car should have been undriveable with that much play.
 
They had it lifted up slightlu above a ramp that was under the the wheels and took a large prybar and lifted up from underneath the wheel, all the play was in the lower bj, but i noticed it from about 25 ft away in the cusyomer area. Then they brought me back there and showed me
 
In regards to the lower ball joints, I would buy lower control arms for both sides. That takes care of ball joints, lower shock mounts, and the camber adjustment bushing. That's my opinion, and I think it's an easier job. I know bill at scp sells them and they are not crazy expensive either. Whatever you choose to do, good luck. Good to see that the other pep boys are working with you, it is unprofessional for a shop to not see this issue when doing the alignment. That's why I am glad i can align them myself, if you have a loose part worst case it will show up when making your caster sweep.

Chris
 
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Well scratch all that, got car out from alignment today and now the brakes are pulling to left again. Whats worse is, now my wheels are turned slihtly to the right when steering wheel is straight, and i went over the bridge on the way back every time i hit a joint in the bridge the steering gets all crazy and wants to turn... Please help!! The bridge scared the sh** out of me i had to go 30 over it. Wth did i do to my car?

You only did the rear strut rod bushings, not the full set as you should have. And the alignment shop did a "toe/n/go" instead of a real alignment.

Well, that's my guess.

RwP
 
Well since were on the lca subject, is the gab in between bushing and frame supposed to be like that? It looks the same on passenger side.
 

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Well since were on the lca subject, is the gab in between bushing and frame supposed to be like that? It looks the same on passenger side.

*blink*

*blink*

There shouldn't be a gap between the bushings and the K-member, since that's what holds the alignment.

And loose, I bet the bottom of the tire would pop up and down quite a bit!

Wonder if that's the problem.

Still sounds like a "toe'n'go" so-called "alignment".

And a really sloppy tech like the one that tried to tell me he couldn't align the camber on my Cougar. Said shop doesn't get any more of my money ... a sister shop, however, does, since the guys there all know how to do a MN12 (!!)

RwP
 
Lol sounds like im doing the whole lca then, qnd might as well do front strut rod bushings as well. All will be at advance in the morning. Got moog lcas
 
Lol sounds like im doing the whole lca then, qnd might as well do front strut rod bushings as well. All will be at advance in the morning. Got moog lcas

Take a hard look at the front strut rod bushings before you jump in there. Those, again, don't match OEM unless you buy OEM. And the OEM are not cheap. They do last a long time. And they can be difficult to change.
 
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