Hi everyone, so i decided to replace the front shocks on my 97 max myself. Once i replaced them i started the car to test drive. The car started fine but it didnt move in reverse or drive and when i placed it back in park it made a grinding sound. When i installed the new shocks i completely tightened the top bolts first and then the bottom, could this be part of the problem? Or is it possible that i damaged something when i moved the wheel hub by hand to fit the new shock? Car was fine up until i changed the front shocks. Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

I'm no expert, so I could be wrong, but I'm not sure your struts have anything to do with your gear selection issue. On my 5th gen auto, my gear selector lever is on the front of the transmission and near the bottom. Crawl under and have look. See if you notice anything off kilter then go from there. Could have worked loose in the console as well. Let us know.

 

If I had to guess, you pulled your front steering knuckles too far out of the way with the axle still bolted in, separating the outer or inner CV joints.

 

The inner joint can dislocate, the outer cannot. I did not mention inner joint separation as I presume the axle would have been shoved back into the tripod upon reassembly, granted everything bolted up properly. The inner tripod is pretty deep, I'm not certain it would be possible to run the axle out completely with the knuckle still fastened to the lower ball joint. Have you experienced this?

 

Yeah, That's what I was thinking as well!

 

This seems possible, i was moving the hub left/right and up/down to align with the new strut. Any guess if this is a costly fix or if the current cv joint could just be snapped back in?

 

I've pulled the outer apart on my 98. I put it back together and used a worm gear clamp on the boot. It haunted me every time I saw it. What a greasy mess it was to put back together.

 

I stand corrected. That has not been my experience. So, with the boot off, you were able to separate by hand the outer joint without any tools, correct? I suppose the OP needs to put the front end in the air and spin a wheel, listening for clatter and noting whether or not the other wheel spins the opposite direction.

 

Mine fell apart while working on the suspension. It was a log time ago, n00b stuff. I had to cut the clamps and pull the boot back and remove enough grease to see the splines.

 

You definitely pulled pulled the knuckle out too far when popping out the strut and pulled the inner cv joint apart on one side or both. I did it once. Felt real dumb.

You can pull off the inner cv boot and see. You can change the axles or re-build them place in a pinch. Get ready to catch the ball bearings as they fall out, whoops that’s what I did. You will get extremely greasy but it’s doable.