What The!?

Hi all, I recently went back to stock and thought it would be helpful to give some tips on how to take the stock shocks out with some pics.

First the fronts:

Here's a pic of the assembly with the wheels off:


Disconnect the lower shock bolt. It's a 17mm bolt with a 19mm nut on the other side.


To make this easy, don't disconnect the ball joint! All you need to do is take out the 2 17mm bolts that connects the control arm to the body. The control arm is the "Y" shaped piece. Once you disconnect those 2 bolts, the whole suspension assembly will swing out.


Once those are done, you can take off the 2 14mm bolts at the top of the shock mount and take the front shock out!

Now for the rears:

Jack up the whole rear end of the car. It'll make life MUCH easier for you. Otherwise you'll need to disconnect the sway bar which is a bitch to get back on.

Here's a shot of the rear. You'll only need to disconnect 3 bolts!


This is the main bolt you'll need to take out. It's a 17mm bolt.


Once you get that off, disconnect the 2 14mm bolts at the top of each mount and voila! The shocks will come right out.
*The driver side top mounts are a PITA to get to because of the fuel line. You'll need an extension to get to it*

Well, that's it. Feel free to post other tips/tricks on this if I missed it. Don't forget to torque all the bolts back. I forgot what they were exactly so hopefully someone can chime in with the Helms. I'll add it to the description as needed. Hope this helps!!

pfb

Excellent info.

Moving to under the hood, although we should probably put this in the library as well...

vin02s2k

what kind of tool do i need to get in the rear driver side?

Prolene

Very good pics! Don't forget to rest the suspension arm on a jack prior to torquing the bolts.

SilverSurfer

I use the following and seems to work quite well:

3/8 Drive
14mm Deep Socket (reg socket will not grab enough of the nut since the bolt sticks up past the nut)
3" Extension
3/8-3/8 Extension (this is about an inch long)
Extendable Magnet (just in case you drop a nut)

The front nut is a piece of cake, the rear nut (the one under the fuel lines) is a little more difficult. You will need to manuever the 3/8 drive and extensions around the rubber housing for the fuel lines so you get a good angle on the nut.

It takes me about 15 minutes to get the rear shocks off the car.

SilverSurfer

One thing to note. The shocks What The is removing are aftermarket shocks and are shorter than stock. Therefore easier to take off. With stock shocks and stock springs you will need to undo the sway bar, and push down on the lower arm to give it enough room to slide out.

Sev

One thing I find a real biaaaaaaatch is, torquing the rear upper arm bolt to 97 lbs while the suspension is put under load, the spring always gets in the way. I have all sorts oif extensions and universal joints, there just ain't no angle.

Is thgere something I am missing on?

Thanks.

SilverSurfer

Sev, why do you remove the upper arm in the rear? I have taken my rear shocks off many many times without removing the upper arm.

Luder94

No you don't. You can get creative on how to allow the lower arm to extend past the reach of the suspension joint. Some people use a thick shaft lond handle screw driver to lever the suspension into compression and get the lower arm to extend....then just swing out the shock (it needs to be unbolted from the top first).

What I did was get the lower arm to extend past the reach of the supsension by using one foot to step somewhere on the rotor. Doing that extended the lower arm enough that the shock unit "fell" out of its position...obviously this is with un-doing the top arm and the top mounting point of the shock unit.

SilverSurfer

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Luder94
[B]

No you don't.