- 1). Lift the front end of the car with a floor jack, and support the control arms with jack stands. Use a tire iron to remove the nuts so you can remove the front wheels. Use a ratchet to pull the nuts off the brake caliper gripping the rotors, and remove it. Unbolt the bracket holding the wheel speed sensor in the wheel hub.
- 2). Use a wrench to remove the nuts holding the upper side of the strut assembly, which looks like a coiled spring with hardware on either end, to the frame. Remove the bolts holding the assembly to the wheel spindle behind the wheel hub. Compress the strut with a compressor, and pull it out of the wheel well. Remove the upper mounting bracket from the strut, and mount it on the new one.
- 3). Position the strut assembly in the wheel well and hand-bolt it to the wheel spindle. Remove the compressor, and twist the dial on the torque wrench to 141 ft-lb. Tighten the bolt at the bottom of the strut to the spindle with the torque wrench until it gives slightly.
- 4). Install the upper retaining nuts, and torque them to 25 ft-lb. Bolt down the bracket for the speed sensor. Put the brake caliper back on, and mount the front wheels. Lower the front end of the car and have a professional align it.
- 1). Remove the trim panels in the trunk to gain access to the shocks.
- 2). Ratchet off the upper retaining nut and the bolt connecting the shock absorber to the shock tower. Pull the shock out through the hole in the trunk.
- 3). Extend and depress the new shock absorber fully a few times. Position it through the hole in the trunk, and torque the bolt connecting it to the shock tower to 57 ft-lb. In the SVT Cobra model, torque it to 98 ft-lb. Tighten the upper mounting nut to 25 ft-lb with the torque wrench.
- 4). Put the trim panels back in the trunk as they were initially.
previous post