Well,
being that I got the rest of my parts this weekend, I proceeded to:
1) take out my springs/stuts
2) remove both front axles
3) remove my loose inner tie rods
4) remove my LCA's,
5) take the bushings out of my front sway bar.

So, I hoped to replace the struts with AGX, springs with Progress, put ES bushings pretty much everywhere except the motor mounts, replace the inner and outer tie rods, and replace the ball joints in the LCA's

I ran out of time yesterday and am (hopefully today) having a machine shop put the LCA's together.

What I didn't factor in, was one of the bolts on the driver's side strut stripping, and wasting lots of time, and requiring me to buy some bolt-out tools.

And, of course, I have a 2 year old and a 3 week old, I guess my time estimates for one weekend were a little off........

pics to come soon......

EDIT: oh yeah I guess you use a pipe wrench on the center bolt of the old struts when it just sits there and rotates?

 

Rubber hose and vice grips on the shaft. Or just hit it with air...

 

forgot I have a strap wrench I'll try that first......

 

Impact alone didn't work on mine, but vice grips + towel (rubber hose would have been better) + impact did the trick.

 

Thanks for the Advice

 

both sides.....all apart

 

no more huge body lean??????? awww.....

 

don't have air.....and the rubber and vice grips ain't working....taking a pipe wrench to it today.....

 

well I had a litany of problems....inner tie rods...CV joints...one LCA bushing was sort of not really there.....
So, I decided to try to fix everything, it's taken longer than I expected unfortuneately, I started Sunday, and now it's Wednesday.
The axles, inner tie rods, LCA's, sway bay are done, the struts are messing me up....

 

Pull the whole assembly (and putthe spring compressors on it) and go to a shop with air. Toss the mechanic $20 and ask him to hit it with the impact gun.

An alternative is to spend $70-80 at Lowes and get a Kobalt corded impact wrench. I sometimes wish that I had just done that instead of buying my huge compressor.

Also, Wal-mart carries Stanley impact sockets for dirt cheap. They have a lifetime warranty. For under $100, you could have most of the stuff that you need to work on suspension. Add a torque wrench and breaker bar and you are set.

 

bringing it to a shop is my next step......

 

See my edit.

Edit the edit: I cannot find it on the site, but I saw the impact wrench in the store...

 

actually buying a corded impact gun isn't a bad idea, but then I have to worry about over torque'ing things......and I've sheared some bolts in my day, with no impact gun....

 

breaker bar? I just use part of the handle of my 2 ton jack........of course I imploded my 3/8 rachet doing this recently....Craftsman ftw......

 

So you think the corded impact is worth it? I bought a compressor to do my hardwood floors & grabbed a cheap Husky impact wrench set that was on sale. However, the gun needs 5.1cfm@90psi and compressor in 4.1@90psi...suffice to saw, the gun can hardly undo nuts...cheap compressor FTMFL.
Last try is to change the cheap accordion hose that came with it & get a proper 1/4" hose, see if that will help the air supply to the gun.

Sorry..that was a little OT..back to regular programming...

 

That's exactly why you need a breaker bar

You can pick up a 1/2" drive 18" breaker bar for <$20 and they definitely come in handy...how did you get your axle nuts off without one? I busted one of my 3/8" ratchets as well doing the same job....

 

I don't need no stinking impact gun or real breaker bar

 

Whoa whoa whoa, you're going through all this to take off the top strut nut? I ended up using a pipe wrench on one of my old rear struts when I removed it, but that was before I realized what I thought more people knew: you have to loosen the nut while the strut is still installed in the car (from the engine bay or trunk). It won't turn because the top of the rod has a flat side. Did you not realize that or am I misunderstanding you???

 

I tried to loosen it while it was on the car...it turned a few times and I thought I was good, turns out it was just turning the whole strut rod.....

 

That's not what I mean. How did you do it without a breaker bar?
Like this: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=30395

See how the head is stationary? Like I said before, my ratchet couldn't hold up to the torque of that axle nut...

 

sheit...pipe wrench didn't work....I guess I'm taking it to a shop.....

 

Was this the rear or the front? The front has a D-shape and fits in a D-shape hole so it cannot turn. The rear might not have the D-shape but a pipe wrench definitely will do the trick...maybe you need a bigger pipe wrench. Here's how I did it off the car:



But if you're fed up I'm sure a shop won't charge you much.

 

My fronts were stock, and they definitly weren't D-shaped, both shops looked at me like a crazy person when I went in the door with my strut assemblies in each hand. One said they would disassemble and reassemble the whole shabang for $20 a side, so I dropped off my agx's, boots, progress springs and all the parts I bought from phenryiv1 this morning.
The rears I got loose easy.

 

I realize what you're asking now...my 1/2" drive rachet did hold up to the axle nuts....Craftsman...ftw....

I blew up my 3/8" rachet when I was trying to get out the stuck bolt that attaches to strut to the knuckle.

 

WTF, I don't believe you! Look at this page of 4th gen suspension parts.
http://web.archive.org/web/200512201...ion/index.html

If you go down to the front strut insulator photo, you will clearly see that the center holes are D-shaped:



So I don't know WTF is up with your suspension!

I actually broke a 1/2" drive breaker bar trying to get an axle nut off. It wasn't Craftsman, but I've broken Craftsman sockets on other occasions.

 

Those look like the ones I bought from phenryiv1, which fit on the agx's I bought.

But no, that isn't how mine looked. They were Tokico struts, and what I am assuming to be stock springs (ride height). They were round, and the top hats were round, which is why I couldn't break them loose. I realize when I picked them up this morning, that this guys was doing this under the table, as he wanted cash (for $40, what do I care?). He had a pretty cool spring compressor, I noticed the ones I bought were D-shaped, but the ones he installed were the old ones. So I had him take it apart and put the ones I bought from phenryiv1 on, which will make my life so much easier if I ever do this again.

regarding the 1/2" drive socket, I gradually applied force to the axle nut, and the craftsman socket held up.
When you have more power than you need--> gradual force is the way to go

 

That's really weird. Well, I'm glad you were able to put the proper ones on.

 

Yeah Spig and I did that on his b14 as well...those axle nuts are no joke

Glad you got it worked out 97SE. Any driving impressions yet, or do you still have a few things left to install?

 

had to work today...took the wife's car to work...spring assemblies are sitting in my trunk.....

 

their pretty good sockects have
nt broken one yet

 

o
m
g

this pic has lots o potential

 

A Snap-on high-torque cordless impact is the best $400 you could ever spend. It can get anything loose, anything tight (if you have to), and has way more torque than other impacts (Harbor freight, craftsman, etc).

I have yet to find a bolt that my Snap-On impact can't break loose. Even the main hub nuts are cake.

 

bring it.......

 

Well finally got it all back together and went and got an alignment.
Lifetime alignments are nice = $0

However, as with probably any chain you go to, they "suggest" a whole lot of stuff that they try to make a big deal out of.
I mean "engine diagnostic service" for $89.99, I guess they assume most people don't know you can't just go to Advance Auto and pull the codes for free?

Part of the conversation was funny though:
them: "you have that brake light on, we could check that for you"
me: "that's ok, it's just the emergency brake cable that I disconnected"
them: "why did you do that, if you have a problem with your emergency brake you should really have that checked out"
me: " the problem is I let another firestone put my car on a lift, and they pinched the cable, I didn't notice it until the rear right caliper starting freezing up on me, they wouldn't fix it for free, and I imagine you won't either"
them: "how do you know they did it?"
me: "that's the last time it was on a lift before it started freezing, I drove it for 5 years before that with no problems"
-slightly long pause-
me:" how long do you want to discuss this? I'm hoping you didn't pinch the other side"

They dropped the pursuit of getting some money out of me at that point.

I'll tell you what though, apparently with no string box and counting the threads from the previous tie rods, and eyeballing it, you can get pretty close. Picture scan isn't the best, but front left toe -0.50 degree and front right -0.87 degree. spec is .05 to .14

 

That's about how much my toe was out when I did it by hand. It just isn't visually perceptable to get it dead on.

 

been driving on it for almost 2 weeks now, feels good. Still have the struts on 2f 4r, and I guess I don't think it's realy harsh at all. ( I did drive a 1st gen RX-7 for 9 years though). I guess if you have to fix some things like I did, you might as well go almost all out. I put new pads on the front brakes while I was at it.
So,
ES bushings all around (except motor mounts)
AGX struts
Progress springs
Inner and outer tie rods
steering rack boots (the left side still isn't fitting correctly)
Raxle axles -both sides
MT-90 tranny fluid

I'm almost $1000 into repairs and upgrades, had to pay the machine shop $100 to remove and push in the LCA bushings, and $40 for a local shop to take apart and put back together my front strut/spring assemblies (they had to do it 3 times though).

I don't think the car ever rode this well since I've owned it. If I wasn't married with 2 kids it wouldn't have been such a drawn out repair. I could have done things without having to feed kids, put them to bed, help with the 1 month old etc..etc..it ended up taking me almost 10 days to get done (mostly because of the LCA guy not hurrying and the struts) but all in all I think it was worth it. I would do it again, my wife knows my time estimates are usually fukked anyway.
Just got to get the pics out of the camera.

 

I have broken a craftsman 17mm socket with an impact and a 3' 1/2'' drive breaker bar on the 36mm axle nut (was gunned on) on seperate occasions.

I have been doing my front end a weekend/weeknight at a time.

 

After I broke the 1/2" drive breaker bar on the axle nut, I called my friend who has a 1" drive set...it was as easy as unscrewing a light bulb with that puppy....