What did you do to your 2002 today !

[NYTransplant]

Went to Cars and Coffee Charlotte today.  Parked next to a nice "barn find" E-Type and met @Bill Flynn.  Great to meet you today Bill.

 

Tim

 

[Bill Flynn]

Great to meet up at the Cars & Coffee! If you need help with the '02 let me know.

 

Bill F

[PhilSeattle]

Went to the lumberyard. I love that that I don’t have to baby this car! What did you carry on top of your 2002 today?

 

Phil

[BarneyT]

Got to drive a parade lap at the circuit of America track in Austin today...and car show...pictures by my friend Tim Higgins...

[chargin]

Cleaned it up and drove it to SoCal Vintage 

 

[cdbeemin]

Good and bad day today. Got the car fully primered, plus hood, trunk lid, and sunroof. Downside, a hundred little imperfections are now clear as day. Didn’t see any of these with the dark grey epoxy primer. So looks like a month of filling and sanding... and my spray gun broke...oh,well. 

[flagoworld]

Removed one... ONE front strut. Took hours, because I have no idea what I'm doing. ?

 

The next one will surely come out easier. That said... Of course, I am in for another boat load of fun.........

 

 

[I'm SpaghetTii]

1 hour ago, flagoworld said:

Removed one... ONE front strut. Took hours, because I have no idea what I'm doing. ?

 

The next one will surely come out easier. That said... Of course, I am in for another boat load of fun.........

 

 

I feel like I'm reading a post from my future self. I'm not looking forward to it...

[flagoworld]

14 minutes ago, I'm SpaghetTii said:

I feel like I'm reading a post from my future self. I'm not looking forward to it...

 

It's not so bad.. just... I did it out of order. I think. I would say, don't bother trying to replace it without removing the entire strut, if you're worried about it being stuck like this. It was really really annoying to remove the brake disc and shield with the strut flapping in the breeze. Remove the brake caliper, disc, and shield first. Use an impact wrench to loosen but not remove the nut at the top of the strut. Remove 3 bolts at top. Put the spring compressor on so the hex head is at the top so the long threaded rod doesn't stick up, or you won't be able to clear the fender.  <– Wasted a good 30 minutes because of this. Compressing the lowest 4 turns of the coil is enough, and should give you enough room to get tools in to turn the hex heads. Once the spring is compressed enough, you can just press down on it and swing it out from the fender. That gave me enough room to get tools in to remove the 3 wire-locked bolts at the bottom of the strut and finish pulling it out. Fun fact: Those are 14mm (WTF?). One of them is damn near impossible to reach without a combo wrench or similar.

 

Someone should correct me because I didn't do much research and I'm guessing the process I came up with is not the most efficient or correct.

 

Tom has some kind of fancy vise-slide-hammer-thingy and I'm going to see if it will be able to knock the strut inserts out. (Thanks!)

[irdave]

6 hours ago, flagoworld said:

 

It's not so bad.. just... I did it out of order. I think. I would say, don't bother trying to replace it without removing the entire strut, if you're worried about it being stuck like this. It was really really annoying to remove the brake disc and shield with the strut flapping in the breeze. Remove the brake caliper, disc, and shield first. Use an impact wrench to loosen but not remove the nut at the top of the strut. Remove 3 bolts at top. Put the spring compressor on so the hex head is at the top so the long threaded rod doesn't stick up, or you won't be able to clear the fender.  <– Wasted a good 30 minutes because of this. Compressing the lowest 4 turns of the coil is enough, and should give you enough room to get tools in to turn the hex heads. Once the spring is compressed enough, you can just press down on it and swing it out from the fender. That gave me enough room to get tools in to remove the 3 wire-locked bolts at the bottom of the strut and finish pulling it out. Fun fact: Those are 14mm (WTF?). One of them is damn near impossible to reach without a combo wrench or similar.

 

Someone should correct me because I didn't do much research and I'm guessing the process I came up with is not the most efficient or correct.

 

Tom has some kind of fancy vise-slide-hammer-thingy and I'm going to see if it will be able to knock the strut inserts out. (Thanks!)

 

I just take the thing out and deal with it on the bench- no spring compressors under the fender.

 

Off the top of my head, wheel, brake caliper, rotor / wheel bearing, SWAY BAR MOUNT, cut the safety wire, get the 2 bolts you can, then I use a jack to move the strut up some to give me room to get to the 3rd bolt- that's it.  Then the top 3 bolts.  If you leave the sway bar connected, well, it's tough, because sway bar is doing it's job...  Oh, and sometimes it's helpful to have 3 or 4 different sets of wrenches.

[NYNick]

8 hours ago, flagoworld said:

 

It's not so bad.. just... I did it out of order. I think. I would say, don't bother trying to replace it without removing the entire strut, if you're worried about it being stuck like this. It was really really annoying to remove the brake disc and shield with the strut flapping in the breeze. Remove the brake caliper, disc, and shield first. Use an impact wrench to loosen but not remove the nut at the top of the strut. Remove 3 bolts at top. Put the spring compressor on so the hex head is at the top so the long threaded rod doesn't stick up, or you won't be able to clear the fender.  <– Wasted a good 30 minutes because of this. Compressing the lowest 4 turns of the coil is enough, and should give you enough room to get tools in to turn the hex heads. Once the spring is compressed enough, you can just press down on it and swing it out from the fender. That gave me enough room to get tools in to remove the 3 wire-locked bolts at the bottom of the strut and finish pulling it out. Fun fact: Those are 14mm (WTF?). One of them is damn near impossible to reach without a combo wrench or similar.

 

Someone should correct me because I didn't do much research and I'm guessing the process I came up with is not the most efficient or correct.

 

Tom has some kind of fancy vise-slide-hammer-thingy and I'm going to see if it will be able to knock the strut inserts out. (Thanks!)

I dropped the whole subframe, engine and all. It opened an entire can of worms that needed opening, but sure made removing the strut a whole lot easier. Ended up redoing the entire subframe and associated parts.

[cdbeemin]

3 hours ago, irdave said:

 

I just take the thing out and deal with it on the bench- no spring compressors under the fender.

 

Off the top of my head, wheel, brake caliper, rotor / wheel bearing, SWAY BAR MOUNT, cut the safety wire, get the 2 bolts you can, then I use a jack to move the strut up some to give me room to get to the 3rd bolt- that's it.  Then the top 3 bolts.  If you leave the sway bar connected, well, it's tough, because sway bar is doing it's job...  Oh, and sometimes it's helpful to have 3 or 4 different sets of wrenches.

Wheel,caliper (tie it up), sway bar end, 3 bolts for ball joint, press off tie rod end, 3 top bolts and lower it out. That way, you don’t have to cut the wire, every nut/bolt is readily accessible. Only challenge is the tie rod end. I take the nut off and turn it upside down then use a 2 jaw puller to put some pressure on the joint. A couple of light taps with a hammer on the top of the puller knocks it loose..

[flagoworld]

17 minutes ago, cdbeemin said:

Wheel,caliper (tie it up), sway bar end, 3 bolts for ball joint, press off tie rod end, 3 top bolts and lower it out. That way, you don’t have to cut the wire, every nut/bolt is readily accessible. Only challenge is the tie rod end. I take the nut off and turn it upside down then use a 2 jaw puller to put some pressure on the joint. A couple of light taps with a hammer on the top of the puller knocks it loose..

 

Why tie rod end, and why not cut the wire?

[irdave]

1 hour ago, flagoworld said:

 

Why tie rod end, and why not cut the wire?

 

For him it's easier to split the tie rod end off.  For me, it's easier to safety wire.

[irdave]

2 hours ago, NYNick said:

I dropped the whole subframe, engine and all. It opened an entire can of worms that needed opening, but sure made removing the strut a whole lot easier. Ended up redoing the entire subframe and associated parts.

 

Maybe a little excessive just to drop a strut- but sure, you could drop the whole enchilada, for sure easier to get to most everything.  :)