Suspension overhaul questions

Well I can no longer let my car eat up tires. I have purchased almost every part to get it back to being aligned correctly. I have a couple of questions with how to handle it. I have to replace both the lower control arms (they have the bushings installed) upper control arms, upper ball joints, struts, outer tie rods, and radius arm bushings. I'm currently getting a quote from Fletcher's but I have a feeling it will be to high of a price. Is this all difficult to install? I don't have any experiance overhauling this many things let alone this are of the car.

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Originally Posted by 89GhostLxi

Well I can no longer let my car eat up tires. I have purchased almost every part to get it back to being aligned correctly. I have a couple of questions with how to handle it. I have to replace both the lower control arms (they have the bushings installed) upper control arms, upper ball joints, struts, outer tie rods, and radius arm bushings. I'm currently getting a quote from Fletcher's but I have a feeling it will be to high of a price. Is this all difficult to install? I don't have any experiance overhauling this many things let alone this are of the car.

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Really depends on the level of knowledge you have and the tools you have at your disposal. Don't forget that you will need to have an alignment performed after all this work is done as well. Since you are replacing all that, you might as well replace the inner tight rods, and sway bar end links. Depending on the milage, replacement of the wheel bearing would not be a bad idea as either. With a lift and all the right tools, I could replace all the suspension in about 3 hours minus anything that had to be pressed in like bushings or bearings.

I know the basic premises of taking everything off, Im just not sure if I could get it all together correctly in the endand if it would take me all day or not.. The shop Calle back and told me they would charge 680$ for everything with the alignment.

I think suspension repairs are among the easiest to do yourself. The manual has big blowup diagrams of how everything fits together. It lists torque specs for all bolts and the bolts tend to be very heavy and tough and unlikely to round off or strip out on you. I'm assuming you aren't lowered or on bags or anything, of course. You will need proper tools like a good breaker bar and torque wrench. If you don't have the proper tools, you can buy them all and still be money ahead over having the repair done by a shop. The only real difficulty you might encounter is seized bolts. Here is a basic primer on dealing with seized bolts, but in the end, it all comes down to experience, and there's only one way to get that... For the tie rod ends, I usually loosen the end, leaving the locknut in place. That way when I put the new one on, I know I'll be reasonably close to the right alignment. You want to stay as close as possible to the right alignment, because you can burn up your tires just driving to the alignment shop if it's way off.

Go for it and we'll be here to help if you get stuck.

Go buy a Pittman arm puller. That has been my favorite tool for separating ball joints without damaging the rubber seals. They can be "rented" for free at Auto Zone and O'Reilly's, but for under $15 it's nice to have one at the ready.

I have a procedure for replacing a tie rod end while maintaining the current alignment parameters. Last time I did mine I just "eyeballed" it and was almost within spec.

Here is my idea. Hang something like a "plumb line" from one of your lug bolts. Mark the spot where it contacts the garage floor or driveway. Now, when you install the new tie rod end you can adjust it until your plumb line contacts the same spot. Don't even mess with counting threads or measuring with a ruler. Neither of those things worked for me.

Suspension repairs are generally easy except for the following:

Seized bolts
Loosening the ball joints
Pressing the bushings in/out


Seized bolts are the norm up here in the rust belt. In AZ you most likely won't have to worry about this.

Loosening the ball joints is easy if you know how to do it and have the correct tools. If you intend to replace the ball joints then a pickle fork and a hammer is the fastest method. If you intend to reuse the old parts then a ball joint puller and a hammer is the next best. A ball joint puller looks like this:

http://www.autozone.com/autozone/acc...questid=383163

Another method that sometimes works (if you're lucky) is to simply loosen the nut and tap on the bolt with a hammer. This has a tendency to round over the threads so you can't get the nut off. Although if you have a grinder you can just grind of the bad threads to remove the nut.


The hardest part is getting the old bushings pressed out and the new ones pressed in. So most people have this done at a shop, which makes it the easiest part.


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