Need to replace all my shocks. Do you jack the wheel up to do that?

 

heres what i did. lifted car up, unbolted upper shock bracket w/ bushings, then set a jack stand under lower control arm, lowered car onto the sand to alighn the shock bolts/nuts. thenlifted the whole thing out by twisting through the coil spring.

 

What about the rear?

 

Jack it up if you need to, but leave the wheels on the ground. I learned the hard way that the spring extends farther than the shock. Scared the crap out of me when I got the last shock bolt off and the suspension thunked to the ground with my hand in the coil.

 

the rear..havnt done it yet..do you have a chiltons or anything? if not heres waht they say

1 disconect shock from spring plate
2 remove the shock absrber access plate from lugagecompartment
3 remove shock attaching nut.
4 compress shock and remove from vehicle

not very helpful if you ask me...but never having done it myself can really say much more. reule of thumb; take the load off the shock before disconecting anything and use the jack carfully.

 

This is why you need a factory shop manual:P

 

I have a 1968 Ford Cougar, Fairlane, Falcon, Montego, Mustang Shop Manual by Ford Motor Co. of Canada Limited. It doesn't say anything about jacks. It just says to remove the shocks, then goes in to some detail about performing 'bench tests' to determine resistance, then tells you to replace the weakest one. That's about it.

 

The rear is farily straight forward. It mounts to the spring plate and under the rear seat. The rear seat needs to be removed to access the plugs that cover the mounting bolts for the top of the shocks. I wouldn't think you need jacks but only for clearance to get under the car. But if that is the case, you'd better use jack stands so you don't squash your melon when the jack fails.

 

+1 jack it up and put stands under the axle housing...just makes it easier to access.

 

Thanks to you all......