mango95se

I just recently installed eibachs and AGX's on my 95 SE. I got a lot of great advice from folks on the maxima.org page and i thank you all very much. In return I, too would like to make some contributions to the boards. Below are some tools and tips that I've come up with for people like me who are novices - this is the biggest car project I have ever done before. There are some things that i didn't find on the .org page that, if i had known ahead of time, would have saved my lots of time and aggravations. For those of you who are experienced, you will laugh at my ignorance, but please correct me or add your comments. For new people, if you have "stupid questions," please feel free to email me because i have likely asked many of these same questions.

1. Invest in quality tools!!!!! I had a toolset that I used for small car maintenence and around the house fix-ups, but they don't work so well doing this stuff. I ruined 2 ratchet wrenches and cracked 2 sockets that weekend. Get some good stuff at a hardware store or Craftsman tools, or something like that.

2. You'll be using sockets that are bigger than what comes with typical tool sets, ie 15mm-19mm sockets, and I remember using a 22mm, as well. I also had to use deep sockets, which are just longer versions of the regular sockets. Be aware that there are 1/2" drive and 3/8" drive sockets, which is the size of the square end of the socket. I didn't realize this and I ended up mixing and matching sockets and drives. Not a big deal because there are adapters that you can use to mate your 1/2"sockets with your 3/8" socket wrench and vice versa.

3. Get your hands on a long wrench or something that you can put a lot of torque/leverage on. The bolts/nuts on the base of the shocks and struts are real tight - that's how i cracked my 2 sockets. I used a 24-inch "breaker bar," which is basically a long wrench with a swivel socket and no ratchet mechanism. available at hardware store or autoparts store.

4. Get a good torque wrench. $25-$60.

5. A lot of time and energy is consumed during the compressing/decompressing of the springs, especially if you do it by hand. If you use a regular giant bolt that clamps onto the spring, consider trying to rig up a drill to adapt with sockets or use an impact wrench (power wrench that hooks up to an air compressor - just learned that, too) to turn the spring compressor bolt.

6. Be careful of your hydraulic jack. Mine fit under the front jackpoint before i changed the struts/springs. But afterwards, it got stuck. not a big deal - we just got one of us to push the car up just a little bit from underneath and the other person pull the jack out. But if we used a bigger jack, we might have had problems.

7. There were lots of questions as far as getting the rubber suspension parts such as the bushings, spring seats, etc, and most of my parts were fine. I replaced them anyway only because i ordered them all ahead of time. This is based on my driving, though, which consists mostly highway miles in Dallas and College Station, TX (including a few off road miles to build a bonfire) and some Houston driving. I've got 84K miles on my car. The only things i would strongly suggest replacing are the boots and the bearings. the metal covers on the rear shocks were a bit worn, but you don't necesarily need to replace them. A friend of mine suggested replacing all the rubber parts with polyurethane parts - firmer ride.

That's about all I have to say. The work should have lasted only 3-4 hours, but got dragged out because we had to pick up a bunch of new tools and stuff. It was definitely not a small oil-change type project, but it was a weekend guy bonding experience to be done with a 12-pack of beer. The ride is great now - my motto coming around curves and exit ramps is "no brakes!!!" the only thing is that i've got tires w/45K mile and i can feel every damned thing on the road surface. I was considering Dunlop sport A2 but since this is my daily driver and the roads I drive on are not so great, i ended up ordering Continental Contact CH95's. Hopefully, those tires will filter out some of that high frequency noise.

good luck and have fun. Again, feel free to email me.