SXGT

This is for 1994 - 2004 bodies.

1. You will need a breaker bar, impact wrench, 5/8th socket, 21mm socket, 15/16th wrench, jack stand, jack, gloves, eye protection, two vice grips and a pipe wrench OR 3 vice grips and your H bar for your lugs or the socket.



2. Mark the position of your strut with a marker, an ink pen works much better. This keeps you from messing up your alignment



3. Put your jack under the control arm and raise the car. remove your wheel. Then Remove your brake caliper. Its held on with two bolts on the back. Put use your breaker bar and 5/8th socket. it should slide right off. be sure you don't touch the pads or rotor and get grease on them. Your caliper will just have to hang there



4. The strut itself has two bolts going through it. This is very straight forward. use the 21mm socket on the bolt and use the 15/16th wrench on the nut. My car had two nuts on the top bolt, one was holding a little mount in place. The other side had the nuts reversed so I would think the small nut goes on the outside, that seems to fit better. So remove the two nuts from the top bolt and the one nut from the bottom bolt. I used the breaker bar to get the thing loose and then the impact wrench to to the rest of the work.



5. With your bottom end of the struct loose you can now remove the top. Use the impact wrench and 5/8th socket on those top nuts and bolt. Now it should all be free and you can pull it out



6. Now here comes the tricky part. You have use your original parts off the old strut if your new kit didnt come with anything. Take off the plastic shield and keep it for later, I just cut my off very neatly. put two vise grips and the pipe wrench on the rod. use your 21mm socket and impact wrench to remove the nut. you have to do this with the strut laying on its side. Spinning the nut makes the whole thing want to move. Remove your parts and be sure to keep them in order and place them onto your new strut. Youll need to put the nut on the new strut using the same vise grip method.







7. Put it all back on. the way you took it off. You'll need to re use your plastic covers to keep dirt and road grime off of your new strut. I am still trying to figure out the best way to put them back on.

stevednmc

A couple of suggestions...

You might want to resize your photos for the thread to be easier to follow. And you should never let your calipers just hang by the brake hose. Get a coat hanger and hang the caliper that way.
The dust boots can be reattached by sliding it over the shaft and securing with a zip tie.

SXGT

these photos were resized perfectly. I am not sure why they are so big now. Its a known photo bucket issue tho. they should update here after a while. On my other web browser they look fine.


zip tie will work. THANKS


edit: copy and paste any image URL into a new tab and its not huge?

edit: restarted google chrome and cleared my data. Photos are perfect now.

Matt's 95 Stang

Beat me to it. But good write up non the less. Why did you go with CC plates if you were doing all this work? Just asking?

Matthew

SXGT

was looking for cheapest OEM replacement. Didnt think to upgrade caster camber plates.

BraMas

I have a couple of problems here. You never put vise grips or anything else that will gouge your new strut shaft. You will tear the seal on the inside of the strut/shock. And all nuts and bolts are Metric just because a standard fits close does not mean you should use it.

ei8ball

Awesome write-up. Just got done replacing both of mine. Pretty simple job to do. Thanks again!

petrock

Yeah, this is an old thread...

To re-iterate some others suggestions:
Don’t hang the caliper by from the hose. You can easily damage the hose and cause braking issues.
Also don’t ever use vise grips on a shock/strut shaft that you aren’t planning on throwing in the garbage afterwards. You’ll mar up the shaft and rip up the shocks/struts internal seals resulting in premature failure.

One thing I didn’t see suggested was that you don’t need to unbolt the strut mounting plate on the top of the strut tower. Just unscrewing the nut in the center of the mounting plate while the car is still on the ground. Its a 21mm nut. You’ll need an impact wrench to get it off otherwise the shaft will spin. Or you can use a 21mm open end wrench on the nut and wedge a large screw driver in the notch at the top of the shaft to prevent it from spinning while turning the wrench. This doesn’t always work though. An impact wrench is highly recommended. This way you don’t have to use vise grips on the shaft or break/remove the strut dust cover.

Good luck...