My impression, that's worth about the money you're paying for it , is that the black rings are washers that are far from necessary. I think they just cushion and give a little protection for the white washers, maybe even letting them rotate slightly as the spring flexes, without having them scuff against the metal perch. It might make a microscopic difference, but for $1 worth of plastic, the engineers were crossing their ts. I'm happy to be told I'm wrong about this, though.

One thing I notice is that looking at the position of your bellows, are you missing bumpers, part #9 in michaelh's diagram? When I replaced my upper mounts I found that my bumpers had completely crumbled and left the car behind. It was cheap to buy replacements, and those seemed slightly more important.

Pep talk section:
You sound like you can handle this task. Just turning bolts (and throwing money at parts) will get you to a perfectly usable place. Yes, your ride height might not be exactly spot on, and you might lose points with the type of car show people who want to see every factory washer in just the right place, but a non-expert turning bolts will end up with a nicely drivable car.

Probably

There are a couple of specific gotchas to watch out for. For me the big one as making sure the bottom bushing ended up rotated correctly to the studs on top of the mount. I had to do mine all over again because I had it perpendicular the first time, so if you have someone compress it for you, make sure they end up with this correct or you'll have to go back for a redo.

I'd say there's a 75% chance that you run into no hitches and everything just works. Then it's only a matter of patience and time, fiddling with a-arm washers to get them in between the bushings for example.

In your place, if I was going to remove the a-arm I'd start with taking off the a-arm nut and getting the bolt rotating in place since that requires the most strength. If you can check that off, everything else will hopefully be easier.

 

Thanks for the encouragement. I've had the nuts off both upper a-arm bolts and was able to turn both so I know I can get them out. It's everything after that happens that I m not sure I can handle. Once the bolt is out and the a-arm drops there s no turning back. I'm not overly concerned about ride height but I am concerned about alignment & tire wear. So whatever the black parts are at the bottom of the spring seem critical. But I admit I don't know.

I also don't know if the "bumpers" are missing or not. I'll have to re examine. Thanks for pointing it out.

 

TropicCat, Get some bungee cords and wrap them around the brake caliber and the front of the upright somewhere pretty tight, then when you take the bolt out it will support the unit from falling out on you. Be sure and have a jack under the bottom A arm. Be aware it does tend to roll toward the back of the car so get the front cord tighter.
Careful with the ABS sensor wire, be sure and remove from the top A arm and hang it out of the way.
Good luck and let me know if I can talk with you over the phone by PM and a time, I will be out of place for about a hour now.

 

I'm even more convinced that I'm in way over my head on this project. If it simply boils down to removing and replacing some parts with a wrench I think I can handle it. But if it requires engineering a solution I'm way over matched. Not to mention the fact that handling the weight of the front suspension assembly after the upper a-arm bolt is removed scares me. And the use of a manual strut compressor on this spring scares me as much if not more. I may have some help with the spring compressor if the guy who owns the shop nearby is willing and able to replace the mounts for me with his manual/screw type press. But that assumes that I can get these ridiculous things out of the car to begin with.

Yikes.

Thanks for the encouragement everyone.

__________________
2002 XK8 Convertible US Spec
Zircon Mica/Ivory

+1 for 'you can do this job'. Per my posts #7, #13 & #15 above, it's easy to get a bit discouraged. Because of the mountain of material on strut mounts, strut r&r and other related posts, here on the Forum, 'infopinion' overload can become an issue....it was for me. But, when I finally pulled the trigger and jumped in, things became progressively clearer and easier to deal with the further along I went.

Regarding the pics of your spring base components, some informal observations. After all the preparatory research I did, plus what I saw when everything was apart., the earlier cars (pre-2000) coupe and drop-head, just had two plain black packing rings (MJA 2182AA) between the spring and the lower spring perch (MJA 2166 BC) on both sides of the car. I think the packers are designed to minimize corrosion and NVH problems with metal-to-metal contact between spring and perch. It's a common feature on many suspension arrangements. From photos I've seen, the white nylon 'locator ring gizmo' appeared sometime in 2000/2001 and was additive to the two black packers. I've seen one photo of a car with just a single black packer under the white gizmo, but most cars seem to have had two. As a guess, I reckon the gizmo ring was introduced to provide better stability for the spring base. The black packers are a very loose fit on the lower spring perch and I imagine the spring, also a very loose fit on the perch, was moving about under load. The white nylon ring is a very snug fit on both the perch and spring so it stops lateral spring movement. Without knowing the maintenance history of your car it's impossible to speculate why it is set up the way it is but as a '02 MY it should have all 3 pieces under each spring.

My $0.2 on the fulcrum bolt is described in #13 above....it takes a few extra mins to remove the caliper, disc, speed sensor cable and hang the caliper out of the way ( I used a bent piece of wire coat hanger) but the pay-off is less weight to muscle around, better access and much easier re-assembly of the bolt and caster shims.

Good Luck.

 

Looks like Wayne and Gian are our last best hope for a reliable, durable and cost effective solution......? No pressure guys.........

 

Feeling it every day Ian.

 

So I spent the weekend trying to find an excuse NOT to perform this repair. No joy. I got absolutely nothing. It seems I'll have to 'man up' and find a way to get it done. Yuck.

I intend to remove the caliper & rotor to lighten the load as well as try and find a place to tie the upper ball joint with wire to hold it up. In addition to finding a place to tie the caliper with wire to hold it up (& maybe out of the way). I puzzled over it for an hour on Saturday but didn't find any place to wire to yet. First I'll have to figure out how to get jack stands under the jack points before doing anything. There doesn't seem to be an alternative spot to jack the front of the car other than the jack points. But I'll never get jack stands in place with the jack in the way. #%$&! The preliminaries may take a week before I'm ready to try and start the repair. Double yuck.

Thanks everyone.

 

Good luck, regarding floor jacks on the front. If you lift the car at the jacking point (rockers}, you can place jack stand on the forward crossmember under the radiator. It has a plastic cover on it but it is steel and will easily hold the weight ot the car. The do not use the main cross member the aluminum piece where all the suspension parts connect.
I still don't think it is required to remove the rotors and calipers. Using a floor jack you can support the weight of the lower a arm and the shock strut is easy to remove. While the lower a arm will swing out of the way the floor jack will keep in up. Once you remove the strut, take a long thin bolt and swing the upper a arm back into position and slide the thin bolt in to keep it in position untill ready to install the strut.

Hang in there, a second pair of hands would be very useful if possible.

 

The topic of liftpoints is an important one in these forums. The front and back liftpoints are covered in threads like the one below.

Personally, any time I'm going to have to use jackstands I go ahead and use my jack under the central liftpoints and generally place my jackstands to the left and right along the central liftpoint.

There are warnings against trying to lift the car with a jack under the wheel hubs. Apparently that can crack the windshield. It's fine to use a jack to lift the A-arm, but don't use a jack there to lift the car itself.

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...deo-faq-53870/

 

I am so glad that I found this forum topic. I have been away for a while as I sold my 2004 X JR but, have recently purchased a 2006 XKR COUPE; a car that I've absolutely fallen in love with. That said, the camber is way off on the driver side tire and I've decided that I'm going to redo the front suspension control arm bushings, lower and upper ball joints, sway bar frame mount bushings, shock absorber/lower bushings, upper wishbone bushings, tie rods, and possibly steering rack mounts. I'm very much looking forward to getting my hands greasy and tackling the pesky upper shock mount problem.

I would be very interested to know where all of you are sourcing your parts for the front suspension work. Any and all help would be appreciated. I'm particularly concerned about the upper shock mounts and am very interested in the fabrication process that some of the members are doing in this regard. I would be very interested in getting on board with a better fix for this problem.

Also, it appears that my 06X KR has THE ECATS system; do I have to disconnect the battery prior to disconnecting the power to the struts/shocks prior to removal?

I'm happy to be back and can't wait to start my refurbishing process on arguably one of the best looking automobiles I've ever laid my eyes on :-)

Thank you in advance

 

Wow, with that todo list, you might be helping TropicCat feel like his task is perfectly manageable by comparison

 

So I got the first strut out of the car this morning. The upper A-arm went fine with the caliper & rotor removed and the sway bar end disconnected from the lower a-arm. I find that I can lift the remaining suspension parts one-handed which makes putting things back together sound possible (except for those lousy shims between the the a-arm bushings and the aluminum mount). I started the second one this morning but it was 95 F at 8:30 this morning so I quit until this evening. It looks like the rotor on that side might be trouble. Here's hoping.

I also noticed that the white plastic spring mount/seat/insulator/leveler (or whatever these are called) are cracked on the first one I removed. The other one is a bit deformed from a bend in the metal spring mount (aka Spring Pan). I tried to order the white bits but there's no part number for them. I contacted a salvage house & I'll see if he can get me 2 in better shape than mine. I ordered a new spring pan for the dented side. I examined the "bumper" on the strut I removed and the top of it is trashed so I ordered 2 of these as well. I REALLY don't want to go into the strut rebuilding business.

It looks like the strut on one side has 3 of the black plastic "spring packers" but none on the other side. I ordered 2 of these as well but I'm not sure what I'll use when I get the mounts off. I think I'll use two per side but maybe only one. The Jaguar official parts guide shows 1 per side but I've read where some cars were shipped from the factory with more than one per side. Yuck.

In the end I decided to purchase the Eurospare upper mounts from FCP since they have a lifetime warranty. Something tells me I'll need it in a year or so ...

 

Congrats on successfully pulling your first XK front strut......it should be all downhill from there.

 

Just an FYI regarding the Eurospare Mounts. I purchased a set and received them 3 days ago. I am returning them. I purchased them based on the image of them which showed the 3 top rivets being flush with the top base. When they arrived they were rounded and NOT flush. When mounted these would have not been up tight against the underside of the fender well due to the rounded rivets protruding above the base. At this point my only viable options are Original OEM Mounts ($$$$) or the Welsh Mounts ($$) (URO Mounts have been universally panned by forum members with much more experience in this area than myself). This is just my opinion and others may very will not agree.

 

Surprising that all these aftermarket offerings seem to have button head rivets. As I noted a while back (Thread - Top Shock Mounts, Post - #17) the URO mounts also had button head rivets despite the top plates being countersunk for flat heads...weird! I drilled out the button heads and fitted flat heads because, like you, I was concerned the mounts wouldn't sit flush in the fender well. By that time I was too far down the URO road to change direction and there wasn't a 12 month warranty to void by modifying them so, for me, the URO die is cast. I've got my old OEM mounts waiting for Wayne's upgrade, as and when they are available. Hope the URO's hold together until he is 'in production'.....

 

Yeah its all downhill from here.




Be sure to have a container of copper grease on hand when you reassemble the upper control arm bushings.

Worth noting that when I replaced the original bushings at about 50K they were dry as toast inside. When I replaced them a 2nd time at 100K they were still nice and greasy because I packed them with copper grease. I think very little lube was used at the factory.

It helps to be very liberal with the copper grease when assembling. The flimsy grease the new bushings are shipped with is not sufficient.

 

Who did you source the Eurospare parts from? It seems like the FCP Euro gang would be willing to discuss the issue with you and see if there's anything they or the Eurospare gang would be willing to do to correct it. If mine end up with raised pop rivets I'll let FCP know and see what happens. But I'll probably drill them out and replace them (assuming the rivets are small enough for my gun). Not a happy solution but maybe the best I can do for now.

Thanks for the heads up.

 

I was planning on caliper slide grease (silicone grease). Is the copper a better alternative for these bushings?

 

Without going too far off-topic, could you briefly summarize the criticisms of the URO mounts? I know I've come across complaints over the years, but I've forgotten what they are, and it sounds like you might have them fresh in mind.

Are they just expected to wear out quickly?

 

So while examining the bushings I found that the front one on the passenger side is starting to deteriorate. The rest look good on both sides. I ordered 4 for now and hopefully I'll only need to replace the 1. I'll take another look at the bushings again after I get the struts rebuilt. Ok ... if I get the struts rebuilt. This alignment of the upper mount studs with the lower shock mount looks painful. I thought the bolt through the bottom mount was exactly parallel with the two outboard studs on the top mount. After looking down through the holes this morning I can see this is NOT true. The lower mount bolt is a few degrees from parallel with the top mount studs. Yuck. It also looks like the struts assemblies are NOT interchangeable once the top mounts are aligned properly with the bottom shock mount. Not sure how to approach this problem yet. REALLY wish I had a jig (& a strut press). But I REALLY don't want to build one. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck.