Has anyone done their front strut mount replacements like ... remove the front struts from the car without touching the upper control arm (pulling the bolt and shims and bushings)?? I am getting ready - for the THIRD time in the last 15,000 miles (Euro, Walsh and now Walsh again) - to do this today and I will let you know how it goes! If you HAVE done it this way and have any helpful comments, let me know!

 

I've seen another forum member post about this method working well, but just a few things on his technique - no need to compress spring as much as he did and I would have removed the spring compressor to check the status of the bump stops under the bellows as it is the same foam used in the upper mount - so if the mount is shot - i would bet the bump stop is gone too.

 

I have done this multiple times. Remove the wheel well liner for some space. Then disconnect the anti-sway bar, either on the control arm or the bar end. This allow the lower control arm to lower even more. Then remove the lower shock bolt. Once you remove the 3 top mount nuts, you have to work the strut free. From memory, you have to move the lower shock end away from its attachment point somehow, and towards the front of the car. Then, once the assembly drops, there is juuuuust enough clearance for the 3 upper mount studs to clear the shock tower. You have to then tilt the assembly "backwards" and take advantage of the space in the wheel well forward of the firewall. Resist the urge to use pry bars and anything to compress the spring. Just keep "searching" for a path to free the strut. If you have to scrape/force anything, you are doing it wrong. And yes, the second strut takes a ton less time to come off once you figure out the first one.

Best of luck, keep us posted.

 

Just watching him compress that spring made me nervous. The few times I have done that I was cra..ing myself, and I was doing it manually, not with an impact wrench!

 

One of our members posted the procedure for removing the shock assembly w/o removing the the upper control arm. We used it when we replaced the front springs earlier this year. Remove the tire & wheel after jacking and supporting car on stand. We placed stand under the rocker sill jacking point so suspension was unloaded. , Remove the plastic inner liner, then remove the sway bar link . The lower shock bolt is also to be removed. Last remove the 3 upper bolts that hold the shock/spring assembly to the tower. Have someone hold the shock and let it drop slowly toward floor. Then tilt the top to the rear (door hinge area) to allow the shock to clear the tower and upper control arm, then tilt the shock forward remove. I believe this is proper order, it worked great for us.
I was away awhile and someone posted same instructions. Easiest way I've seen.

 

So I did NOT get around to doing this quite yet - I wanted to clean out my garage first so I could get the jag back in there (since my car was in the shop for eight months it got a bit messy). I will do the swap this week and let you know how it goes!

 

I finally got around to doing the shock mounts yesterday... I putzed around trying to do it like in the video but it was a struggle for me by myself... I then switched to the tried and true method I had done in the past (from Sam's video) and it went fine... pulling the top bolt is not a problem for me - it slides out fairly easily (probably the Florida climate - and the powerflex bushings). Maybe if I had a hand and a longer pry I might have been able to do it the other way, but either way IT IS DONE.

And it is amazing how quiet the car/ride is when the upper shock mounts are brand new...

 

I've done it both ways, so for the sake of anyone coming across this thread in the future:

When I first got the car I did it the "right" way, removing the control arm. Then, after seeing this video, I swapped both without removing the arm. I'm sold on this technique.

Like fmertz said, the clearances are amazingly tight, and I really wonder if it's coincidentally possible or if the engineers intended it to be done this way.

It's the sort of thing where the strategy is simple but there is no tactic. Once the bolts are all removed, somehow one manages through multiple tries to get the strut aligned just right so that things slip past each other. It might happen on the first try or the fifth. Somehow get the bottom to slip toward the front and down, which somehow allows the studs to drop far enough to get around the seam, then somehow get the top backwards to allow the bottom to come out.

So maybe it's up to the question, are you feeling lucky? If yes, go for this way. If not, go for brute force and take out the control arm.

 

Exactly... and as I was trying to maneuver the bottom around the bracket I rubbed the bottom of the shock against the bracket and the round lower bushing clip got caught and popped off and I was like, screw it... it was sooo close but I just got tired of messing with it.

 

Yeah, that happened to me too on one of the two struts that I pulled that way. Fortunately replacement of the lower bushing was on the todo list anyway, so it wasn't a sacrifice.

It's something for people to watch out for when they try, though. The guy in the video made it look much easier than it ended up being.

 

Thanks to fmertz and all who posted the videos and info in this thread for removing the front shocks the "easy" way without disassembling the upper A-arm but dropping the sway bar. I think a little more info would be helpful for how to remove the shock once it is entirely unbolted and dropped down into the pocket next to the hub/knuckle. I removed it by sliding it back up the lower A-arm and through the mounting yoke then twisting it out of the yoke toward the back of the car, tilting it toward the back also and finally positioning the lower, bolted end as far front as possible. I then continued to rotate it toward the back (counter-clockwise on the US passenger right/ clockwise on the left) and sequentially cleared each of the three mounting studs under the fender seam - a full 360 degree rotation. As noted by fmertz above, no forcing of the lower A-arm is required - there is just enough clearance. Once free of the mounting well, the shock will come out easily by turning it to the horizontal and lifting it out toward the back. This info may be available elsewhere and I have missed it, but thought it would add to this thread.

 

After having tried this method several times without success I'd still like to know what the trick is. I wasn't able to get the pry bar to move the lower a-arm a micron after the sway bar end was free and the shock mounts separated. And after seeing how pancaked my upper mounts are I'm even more impressed that after NEW upper mounts are installed that this method will work for re-install. Even MORE clearance is needed to install if the height of the assembly increases by the height of the new upper mounts. Wowsers. Does it just require more brute strength than I can bring to bear?

 

Reply to TropicCat today: when the lower A-arm is dropped completely, there is no additional clearance by leveraging it. It is metal-on-metal at that point and the only play available is from what may be worn bushings in the arm (as evident from the "Fix-It-Phillip" video). No forcing of any kind is required. The trick is first rotating the shock a quarter turn toward the back, leaning it toward the rear to gain the most clearance, and then rotating it a full turn/spiraling it out from under the mounting well and getting the mounting studs past the fender seam. The length of the entire shock is unchanged after the new mounts are installed - the spring ends up being compressed an additional inch back to its original position.