*Disclaimer* - I am not liable for anything you do to your car. This is just a basic walkthrough.
I took the pics with my HTC EVO 4G LTE from Sprint. End of shameless plug lol. I took these pictures after I already had installed my suspension so you will not have such a nice and clean suspension when you get in there. Unfortunately
.I did this like a week ago so some of my details (such as sizes of wrenchs) may be off. If you have a 12-19MM sizes, you should be all set.
LASTLY - THIS IS A VERY TOP DOWN HOWTO. JUST MEANT TO GIVE AN IDEA ON HOW I DID IT.
Task: Change The Front and Rear Suspension (in this case to coilovers)
Time: I spent a better part of 2 days on this because I had some MAJOR issues with rusted nuts/bolts, etc. If you live in the South, this shouldn't be as bad. If you live in the North...you'll probably be in the same boat as me. YOU WILL NEED A ****LOAD OF UPPER BODY STRENGTH or some major power/air tools.
Tools/Supplies Needed:
- 12-19MM sockets/wrenches (see explanation above - details are hazy since I did this a week before doing the HowTo)
- Suspension components you are going to be swapping, in my case this was all four corners because I was going to BC Coilovers
- Floor Jack
- Optional - Anti-Seize - put this on all the bolts, etc. you take off and have to re-install
- Optional - Wire Brush
- Optional - PB Blaster (LOTS OF IT)
1) Put your car securely up on jack stands. In my case, I have a lift, so it's much easier.
2) Take off the tire. You will see this:
3) Now, first thing we want to do is free up the front strut. You need to remove all of the lines (brakes and ABS) as well as the strut assembly brace.
4) Once you have all that done, you want to remove the bolt/nut holding the strut assembly brace to the control arm. This might be extremely tough. I had to fight this for quite a while and ended up cutting the bolt and buying a replacement at the hardware store.
5) Now, loosen the three nuts in the engine bay that are holding the strut in place.
6) Once you have everything loose, you should be able to move the strut around and get it out of the brace assembly and then out of the car. It will take some finnagling and maybe a few light hits with a mallet to get the brace off the bottom of the strut.
Installation of the new strut is the reverse of removal. Do the same steps for the other side.
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Now we can work on the rear suspension.
1) Put your car securely up on jack stands. In my case, I have a lift, so it's much easier.
2) Take off the tire. You will see this:
3) Now, secure the spring perch like so with the floor jack and a 4x4 or 2x4 (or something sturdy):
4) With the spring perch secured, take out this bolt. I'm pretty sure this was 17MM.
5) After that bolt is removed, slowly lower the floor jack to relieve the pressure on the spring.
6) Once the spring is loose, push the perch down and remove the spring. Install your new spring. In the case of my BC's, I re-used the rubber spring seat and got rid of the rubber cone thing. The order to re-install was Spring Perch -> Spring Seat -> Spring -> BC Adjustment thing (term escapes me right now). It should look like this (sorry for the bad pic):
7) Secure the spring perch again by raising it into place and installing the bolt/nut.
8) Now we can work on the rear shock. Remove the two nuts at the top of the shock.
9) Remove the main bolt holding the shock.
10) The shock should come out relatively easy now. Installation is reverse of removal.
11) Put everything together and double check.
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As for how to actually setup the coilovers (in this case BC's), I used the following link as a guide. However, I didn't have much success (evidently, too complicated for this IT guy) and I ended up going to a local shop to have them adjust everything to how I wanted it:
Link
