TimKustom
Registered
Finally got around to replacing my front struts. The left front sprung a small leak, “pssting” whenever it rebounded. Only dropped once though. Thought I’d share my replacement experience with the group. Maybe this can help somebody else doing this job for the first time.
I downloaded the instructions from the repair info area in Lincoln Tech on the homepage “Front Strut Replacement Paper.”.
These instructions are pretty thorough, but I disagree with the phrase “The pros, when replacing the struts, use a LOCK BLADED knife and stab the bag.” THERE IS NO NEED TO DO THIS! Omit step 14 and go right on to step 15. Seems "pros" would remove the solenoid. Maybe they don't want leaking bags to be quite obvious.
The other thing I ran into is Step 18 “Once the nut is off, tread it back on the bolt and tap it with a hammer to push the bolt out.” Uh, NO.
So I went back to our great forum and came across this thread by J:
http://www.lincolnsofdistinction.or...r-Strut-(Write-Up)&highlight=lower+strut+bolt
“I used my flat head screw driver and pried the metal "flag" off the head of the bolt. It breaks off fairly easy with a few rocks back and forth.” <—— DO THIS!
I used a dremel to grind the flags off. Then you can get a socket on it and thread it off. On my car it looked like once they are torqued on, the bolt threads itself into the bracket of the strut.
Before I got rid of the flag, I hammered, cussed, tried clamps, cussed, hammered again, cussed. Due to this, the one side took about twice as long as it should have, but I had the other side in and out in under an hour (replacing sway bar links too) using regular hand tools.
If I was smarter, I should have replaced the upper arms while I was in there.
Overall this was an easy job and I’d say anyone that knows the difference between a lock blade knife and hammer should have no trouble following the great advice archived on this forum.
I downloaded the instructions from the repair info area in Lincoln Tech on the homepage “Front Strut Replacement Paper.”.
These instructions are pretty thorough, but I disagree with the phrase “The pros, when replacing the struts, use a LOCK BLADED knife and stab the bag.” THERE IS NO NEED TO DO THIS! Omit step 14 and go right on to step 15. Seems "pros" would remove the solenoid. Maybe they don't want leaking bags to be quite obvious.
The other thing I ran into is Step 18 “Once the nut is off, tread it back on the bolt and tap it with a hammer to push the bolt out.” Uh, NO.
So I went back to our great forum and came across this thread by J:
http://www.lincolnsofdistinction.or...r-Strut-(Write-Up)&highlight=lower+strut+bolt
“I used my flat head screw driver and pried the metal "flag" off the head of the bolt. It breaks off fairly easy with a few rocks back and forth.” <—— DO THIS!
I used a dremel to grind the flags off. Then you can get a socket on it and thread it off. On my car it looked like once they are torqued on, the bolt threads itself into the bracket of the strut.
Before I got rid of the flag, I hammered, cussed, tried clamps, cussed, hammered again, cussed. Due to this, the one side took about twice as long as it should have, but I had the other side in and out in under an hour (replacing sway bar links too) using regular hand tools.
If I was smarter, I should have replaced the upper arms while I was in there.
Overall this was an easy job and I’d say anyone that knows the difference between a lock blade knife and hammer should have no trouble following the great advice archived on this forum.