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Front end all ooshy gooshy? That can be easily repaired, and for less time, money, and effort than you probably thought....

When replacing any parts of your suspesion, as with the rest of the car, you need to keep in mind its actual use and your own insane desire for higher performance. If you spend a lot of time on the freeway or you've past the hot rod age of youth, you may want to consider using stock replacement rubber bushings, strut cartridges, and springs. If you are a freakin' nut case, like me, then go with Da Beefy Stuff. With the exception of the cartridges, the price is about the same for silly stiff as cooshy comfo. Enough editorializing, on with the instructions!

First off, you really need a garage to do this in, as well as a handful of semi-unusual tools:

While you could probably get by without any of the aforementioned, you'll thank yourself time and again if you get the right tools, and do it in the right environment. Okay, NOW I'm done editorializing.

  1. Jack the car up, support it on jackstands, and remove the front tires.
  2. Open the hood, remove the plugs over the center of the strut, and loosen the nuts that live underneath. DO NOT remove them completely, whatever you do. Can you say, "Explosive Decompression?"
  3. Remove the front sway bar, end links (on control arms) and mounting brackets (on frame).
  4. Disconnect front brake lines, and get something to catch the dripping fluid.
  5. Remove the two bolts that hold the strut to the steering knuckle. There's probably a lot of crud in your way, so keep looking. But DO NOT seperate the strut from the knuckle just yet.
  6. Back up under the hood, remove the three nuts that hold the upper spring seat to the inner fender. Be ready for the whole strut assembly to fall down, out, in, whichever way you least expect it. Take the strut out and set it aside. See the strut page for instructions on how to replace the springs and struts, if you need to.
  7. NOTE: the following steps are only to be done if you are replacing the ball joints and outer tie rod ends. Since you're in there, don't be a cheapskate - do it once, do it right.
    1. Loosen the lock nuts that secure the outer tie rods to the inners.
    2. Remove the cotter pins in the castle nuts on the ball joints and outer tie rods. Remove the nuts. Douse the bolt heads heavily with liquid wrench, and go watch some TV.
    3. The next day, grab your pickle fork and heaviest hammer, and start whackin'. With any luck, the ball joints and tie rods will pop right off. With no luck, you'll be there for hours. Keep an eye on the pickle fork's forky part. I found that they started to seperate after a few good smacks.
    4. Once you get those off, congratulate yourself on a job well done - the hard part's over.
    5. Under a LOT more gunk, you'll find four bolts that hold the ball joint to the control arm. Remove those, and the ball joint should pop right out. Chuck them bad boys in the trash can. Their long lives are at an end.
    6. Unscrew the tie rods, and toss them out too.
  8. Now you need to take the TC rods out. First, remove the nut (or nuts if you've got two locked together; I had a TC kit, so I had two nuts. Anyway) at the back of the TC rod. Hopefully you haven't obscured their location with the jackstands. Then remove the front bolts, and take the TC rods out.
  9. At this point, the only thing still keeping the front control arms in should be the inner pivots. Remove those now, and drop the front arms out.
  10. That's it - the front end should be completely out at this point. If not, email me.

Now you need to burn the inner control arm bushings out. This is a lot of fun.... What I did was:

  1. Prop the bushing end of the arm over a coffee can full of water, and then got the propane torch out. I set that krispy kritter to "nuclear", then propped it in such a fashion as to be aiming directly at the inner sleeve of the bushing.
  2. Go get a soda, kick the cat, whatever you do when you've got a few minutes to kill.
  3. You should now be able to grab the sleeve with some pliers, and twist and pull it out.
  4. Then you take the big ol ugly screwdriver and pry, scrape, chisel out the rubber. It shouldn't be too hard if you've got it good and hot.
  5. Once you get one out, and reasonably free of rubber boogers, try to put one of your replacement bushings in. It probably won't go. What you get to do next is BIG fun.
  6. Take a hacksaw, and remove the blade.
  7. Pass the blade through the hole where the bushing used to be, then put the saw back together.
  8. VERY CAREFULLY, saw through the thin metal shell. Don't go all the way through, but get damn close.
  9. Then take the saw out, grab your big ugly screwdriver, and pound that shell out.
  10. Clean up the inside of the control arm, and test fit a bushing again. Much better!

You should put new rack and pinion bushings in, too. This is easy!

  1. Remove the four bolts that hold the rack brackets, and take the brackets out
  2. Take out the wacky looking stock bushing, and put in the new ones.
  3. If you're doing a new steering coupler, this is the time. Remove the four bolts (under the hood, near the master vac), put the new one in, and tighten up.
  4. You need to be sure to put the rack bushings in on the proper side, and in the proper orientation.
  5. I found that I needed to use a piece of the stock bushing to make a tight fit on the new ones, so don't be alarmed!

Now, all you have to do is clean everything up to your heart's content, paint as desired, and put it back together. Some notes:

  1. Make sure to use plenty of grease on the new bushings.
  2. The tie rods are threaded differently, so if they don't go, try the other side.
  3. Put your bushings in the freezer for a while if you have problems fitting them - I recall having to do this on the front control arms.