Ok I give up! I can not get the front strut out? it seems like there is not enough room to clear the lower arm, what is the secret apart from undoing every thing in sight. Any help would be greatly appreciated, getting a headache and very frustrated. Thanks in advance, trying to put my H&R springs on.

 

Just had mine out to replace the upper control arm and verticle links for new ball joints. Remove the verticle link, undo everything you can see and basically take out the link/hub/brake assembly. Compress the spring, undo the four nuts ontop, undo that big friggen bolt holding it in the lower control arm. It should now come out!
That is basically what I did since in order to replace the upper control arm the strut/spring has to be removed. It was not fun, but yes, you basically have to remove everything you see!

If anyone has a better way I'd be glad to hear it as well as I never want to have to do that again!

 

I can't believe I get one response on the front struts. Most everyone on this site is running the H&R lowering springs? or at least praising them. What everyone has a shop do the springs for them?

 

I guess so. I will be doing my own once I get up enough money to buy a set. I will also do a video to help out people that are up to the task of doing it themselves. Havent done the R yet but on previous cars its just a matter of removing whatever is in the way or pushing it out of the way. I've done suspensions on about 5 cars and all of them have been different for what has to be removed. I was at a shop that had lifts for people to use and watched a guy for hours trying to get the springs off of his BMW 3-series. After I noticed he was really struggling I decided to lend a hand and took a look and noticed he had the parking brake engaged which tensioned the rear end cause the halfshafts weren't able to spin when he lifted it. He released it and the springs shot off. So be careful. 3-series has a spring shock not a strut which is why they shot off. Kinda funny but scary at the same time. After that in a matter of 30 minutes the car was back together.

 

bump

 

Thought you had your answer above? If it's hitting the lower arm and you can't get it out remove the lower arm. I haven't done the STR since mine was done when I bought it but I have changed and upgraded lots of cars and never had an issue.

I have had a few where I cut the strut to get the old one out and didn't cut the compression bands off the new ones until I had them in place in the car. They are a lot shorter when compressed?

 

Lowering springs should be shorter in general so the getting them back in should be the easy part. One of the cars I lowered the springs were loose until the suspension was under tension again. So assembly was a snap. I think you are just going to have to either remove the arm in the way or you might just try to loosen it it might have a bushing that when tight the bushing is tensioned so the rubber part cant only move a bit but if you loosen it will have free range of motion. My Audi was like that. You have to leave everything loose until it was back together and sitting on the suspension before tightening anything otherwise the bushings will be fried in a very short time after cause you would of twisted the rubber section more then was allowed. So you may not have to remove stuff but if you loosen everything may give you more motion to get the strut to clear the arm.

 

Vance understood it to be the strut that was to
long not the spring? Maybe I didn't understand the question LOL.

 

I'm assuming he is trying to get the strut spring assembly out. You usually have to push the lower control arm that it bolts to pretty far down to get it to clear. Some cars its not possible and you have to remove this arm. Thats what I'm taking from his description. I think I'm correct unless I'm taking it the wrong way. LOL. I usually leave the top part attached and remove the lower part remove everything out of the way of the strut then remove the top and then its just a matter of getting it to clear that lower arm. My Audi was the last car I did and I just removed everything from the lower and removed it but that was because I was replacing it but if I wasnt I would of been able to loosen it and it would of went down to the ground and the strut pull right out. I haven't looked at my R cause I havent gotten springs yet but I'm assuming the bushing are tensioned similiar to the Audis and its not going to allow that arm to move unless all of the bolts holding it are loose then it should drop far enough to allow the strut to pull right out. I need to get some H&R's so I can do this and make a video. LOL.

 

Thanks for the input, I will have to remove the lower arm or at least disconnect it to remove the strut. I tried to compress the strut then use a combination of steel plates and threaded rod to hold it, which did not work,theory was good design was bad. So today I shall succeed! and let you know how it went. Thanks again to everyone for their help. Paul

 

You have to have someone push down on the lower control arm (with foot) to give you clearance to pull the strut out. The lower control arm is spring loaded to push up the control arm.

 

I hope he managed it in the last 8+ years!

 

Perhaps the jaguar workshop manual will help?

The front strut removal is on page 127.

http://www.jagrepair.com/images/Auto...M-Workshop.pdf

Mellow