Stupid question : shock/strut assembly

MaxMustang said:

This is a joke, right? A week to put shocks/struts on?

DARWIN!!!!! Thou hast forsaken us!!!

Click to expand...

You have no idea the hell it has been.
Murphy's law is in full force with these mods.

We started the install 2 nights ago but each night we didn't have much light to work with since I work until 6pm. Plus, the weather has been cloudy and rainy recently. it sucks.
My first shipment of shock/struts was lost by UPS. A 2nd set was sent out and a week later, UPS didn't show up with the package. Their page said "out for delivery" and I waited half the day, but when I finally got in touch with someone in the warehouse, she goes "Oops, we forgot to put it on the truck even though we scanned it." The next morning, the shocks/struts arrive. But of course one of the shocks was damaged. GEFracing 2nd day'd a replacement one so now I finally have a full set, almost 3 weeks later. Perfect timing, though, my friend and I planned to do the install that weekend. Sadly, many sudden obligations took all that time away and the install was moved to Weds night after work.

Then the sway bar wouldn't come off. Apparently when we did my LCA install we damaged one of the sway bar clips some how so we couldn't get a wrench on the nut to take the sway bar off. That took an hour to finally pry and smash the clip. The rest of the rear was a piece of cake but it got dark so we only got 1 side done. Thursday night we did the other rear in 20 minutes, from jacking up to lowering. Then we went to the front passenger.

That spring was a %*&@%@#&#!&# to get in. I don't know wtf it wouldn't go in but we tried everything and I don't even really know how we got it in. We didn't disconnect the tie rod only because I thought I had read you need a special tie rod puller tool but I posted at MD tonite and found out you don't need anything special. We'll definatley disconnect the tie rod on the driver side if we can EVER get this strut dust cover off.

And sadly, I didn't get any pictures of the install. Originally my cousin was going to play photographer that first weekend. But since we weren't able to do it then and he works during the week (night shifts) he can't take pics. and on top of that, it's too dark by the time most of the work is getting done. It's a very straight forward install, I guessed it would take us 3-4 hours, 5 tops but everything goes wrong.

I went to Ford to buy new dust covers so I wouldn't have to figure out a way to get those 5 year old nuts off of the stock strut but of course Ford doesn't sell them. Even worse, the parts guy looked at me crazy when I said it was an OEM Ford Mach 1 strut.


I'm never going to get to drive my car again My friend is working tonite so we can't do anything. Tmw afternoon is the next opportunity but we have to get the stock strut dust covers off first...

Oh, supposedly a friend of my neighbor's is going to bring over an impact gun tonite so we can try that on the strut nut. Hopefully his friend doesn't fall through: Murphy's law

A friend was working at a shop today so he was able to use an impact gun to take the old struts apart and put the new ones on. The old ones were rusted shut.

No pics reeally, sorry
It's -really- straight forward. I used the Mustangworld as a guide and it would've been incredibly easy except for the nuts that were -really- rusted on tight.

The car rides sooooooo awesome, the body roll is reduced by soooo much. It's amazing how crappy the suspension is before. I can't imagine how a real nice suspension setup drives... I bought the cheapest stuff I could find.


Highly recommended!!