suspension rebuild help

beerdog said:
How long does it take for the air spring to reinflate? Should I wait till it reinflates before I take it off the jack stands?
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I would remove the jackstands and lower the car to slightly lower than the stock height. While still on the jack, cycle the ignition key and allow the compressor to run. It may time out in 90 seconds. If so, repeat by turning off the ignition and then turning it back on. By the completion of 2 cycles it should be inflated properly to remove the jack. If not, investigate for a leak.

You need to buy another fuel filter. ;)
 
Was the suspension switch turned off during the operation and is it now turned on? Also the car needs to be lower than normal for the suspension computer to demand it to rise and hence turn on the compressor. I only meant to infer supporting the car partly with the jack so to not be bottomed out.
 
The suspension switch was turned off, but is now on. I was thinking that the car needed to be lower to turn it on, but was not sure. I will try it now. With technology today I was thinking it was able to sense that the car was a foot higher than normal.

The fuel filter was piece of cake....since everything else was off the car. what a PITA if that is all you are doing.
 
That was the trick..although I did a pretty weak job of preventing it from bottoming out. My floor jack sucks. Need to go buy a new one ASAP just so I am not tempted to use it again. Just about killed myself.
 
Glad you got it done. :wave022:

I always end up with a shopping list after working on the car. ;)
 
thanks. just drove it to the shop for alignment. Good thing they are close. It is way off. I gues all new parts will do that.
 
It is a firestone tire shop. I did not think about that, but I would hope a shop that just does this type of stuff knows that. Do people post about shops not doing it at the parked ride height?
 
The car is supposed to drop to parked height when shut off and the doors are closed after exiting the vehicle. You only have a problem if for some reason this does not function correctly and the car is aligned at the improper height.

FWIW, I had to teach this to the guys who aligned my car.
 
I noticed that the car ws doing that after I turned it off in the garage. I am going to call them to make sure.
 
It is finally done. Got it back from the alignment and just finished reinstalling all the covers and shrouds. I am surprised how effective the wheel well shroud is at blocking noise. I drove it around without it for a little while. My first reaction was that these are some noisy suspension parts. It sure will go quicker if I ever do this again, but there would need to be a cutting torch handy....and a bigger floor jack, longer 18mm wrench, 18mm gear wrench, shallow and deep metric impact sockets for each bolt, plus a few other items.
 
Yes. I had to work it out from the top and through the access hole. I think it would have been easier from the top if I had an long length gear wrench or combo wrench.
 
Just an FYI. I avoided the blue plastic Moog strut rod bushings and went with the spicer bushings fron Rockauto. Thye are hard rubber and are similiar to the OEM bushings. The nice thing is that the sleeve did not have to be trimmed like on the Ford bushings, but IMO the OEM bushings are better constructed.
 
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