I'll be doing some front suspension work in the holidays and I have a few questions. Among the items I will swap are the following:

• Shock mounts (bought Welsh urethane mounts; they seem well made).
• Lower shock bushes from SNG Barrat
• Anti-roll bar links. Bought Moog problem solvers as they seem to have great reviews in general. Let's see if they're any good on the X100.

Upon examining the new links, I noticed these have grease fittings. So I thought this would be as good a time as any to add grease to any suspension and drivetrain components that need it. Do these car have any other grease fittings that I can lube up?

Does any of the work to be performed require bolts to be tightened to specific torque values? If so, what are they? Will I need any special tools other than the spring compressors and a press to complete this job? I have a friend who is a mechanic that will lend me these to use to get the job done.

Finally, could anyone please provide me with the JTIS instructions for the replacement of the shock mounts, lower bushes, and sway bar links?


Thanks in advance

 

Grease? Yes, 1 place by rear drive shaft on each side, that's it. Someone can better describe 4 us.

parts: missing upper shock mounts, upper control arm bushing ( go to powerflex website for good picture of all bushes and locations).

don't forget to check stabilizer bars front bushes.

tie rods?

upper ball jounts(easy job)

lower ball joints (harder to get to).

I have to admit I don't recognize lower shock mount.

hope this helps, John

 

No, no, I bought the upper shock mounts and the lower shock bushing. The other items you mentioned I will be replacing as my budget allows it. At this moment I'm changing the most critical items.

 

Once all assembly is complete, the suspension bolts should only be tightened with the vehicle on the ground.

 

Alright. So how do I proceed on disassembly?

I imagine I have to jack up the car and remove the front wheels. Disconnect the adaptive suspension wires, compress the springs unbolt the upper shock mount, and then the lower bolt on the shock to get that out? The sway bar link is also only two bolts and it's out? Am I missing anything?

 

There is no need to compress the springs unless you intend to replace the dampers.

 

Really? That saves me some trouble. But, then how do I safely remove the shock mount from the assembly without compressing the springs?

 

Have a look at the video embedded in post 16 in this thread:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...-04-xk8-99805/

 

The spring is held in partial compression by the nut on top of the shock. Between the nut I mentioned and the lower spring mount plate the spring can only compress to absorb bumps. It is under tension still, that's why you use a spring compressor before you take that top nut off.

hope it helps. John

 

If you remove the plastic wheel well liner, you should be able to shimmy the strut off the car without having to mess with the long bolt/shims of the upper control arm. HUGE time/trouble saver.

Get a good quality, safe spring compressor!

Make sure you have the lower shock joint properly lined up (rotated) with the upper mount tower bolts before releasing the spring compressors.

Make sure you line up the right set of sockets/supports to press the lower shock joint on the outer perimeter. Pressing the center protruding section will likely break the plastic insert. I used a cheap HF 10-ton press for this.

The other lube points are both ends of each of the rear half shafts (4 grease fittings total).

Best of luck, keep us posted.

 

Wanted to be sure you know to use an air compressor (10gallons+) with an impact wrench to compress the springs. It'd be a job from hell to try to do it with a manual socket wrench.

FWIW, I always use (borrowed from aitozone) 2 sets of spring compressor at same time. Makes it much easier for me, cost = same, zero$$ to borrow.

John

 

I have always been too cheap to invest in air tools.
So I can confirm that the front springs will compress manually.

I covered my experience on all of what you are about to do in my working thread starting here. Hope it helps give some insight into the difficulty.

 

Rothwell, wow you must have Popeye's forearms. I can't imagine doing that manually. Kudos to you. But I'm happy to hear it can be done.

John

 

Wow, thanks guys. My buddy will probably be the one decompressing it with his impact wrench. I didn't think it would've been such a tough job to compress the springs, but then I saw the reverend's video. I don't think I could muster the strength to do that by hand.