Mark Price 2
Active Member
Well, just finished my biggest job on the ST to date. All new Moog K-series upper control arms with ball joint(changed pass.side to single arm), lower ball joints, tie rod ends, and cam/cast bolts both sides. WHEW! I'm wiped out! I can understand why shops charge so much for this work. The tech should get at least half of the labor cost if not more. But, then again I was on a milk crate on the floor of my garage in 103F. Everything hurts. But, well worth it!
Yep, the fuel and brake lines were in the way, plastic wheel well was in the way as well to tighten bolt to 100lbf/ft with a torque wrench(almost "trimmed it"), and had a hard time getting the lower ball joint to separate from the spindle.(i didn't have a pickle fork..you don't want to know). ..I used the press from advance auto. Worked fine for install. Freezing them made it even easier. I just used a lot of PB blaster(my best friend for this project) and a BFH and large socket to remove. Disconnected the ABS sensor from its connector. Instead of risking breaking the sensor.
One oopsie...(as usual) as I was tightening one of the PITA camber bolts. I didnt notice the cam washer was not seated correctly. When I was finished I noticed both large cam washers were completely warped! Had to run to advance and get another moog bolt set. oh well. The clearance for the cam washers is very small. The washers, when seated properly, can only rotate a very small amount. I though they would rotate much more but there are metal strips behind the bracket that you cannot see that they go in-between.
On a good note, the alignment tech said I did a very nice job and could tell I really cared about the ST. I'll post the print out. Of coarse the toe was way off. I forgot to write down the number of turns when removing the tie rod end.(then took a nap) I left the jam nut only a half a turn off, so I was close enough. The camber and caster were actually in spec. Got lucky. I crossed my fingers though on the 10 mile trip to the shop.
Anyway, thanks for reading:banana:
...btw, almost 160K. uppers were shot. lowers surprisingly weren't terrible and tie rods weren't bad at all. Just thought I may as well do everything. I do have slight feathering on my tires.
Thanks to all on here for giving me the courage to do this job myself. It was nice knowing that if I ran into any issues you all would be here:haveabeer:
Yep, the fuel and brake lines were in the way, plastic wheel well was in the way as well to tighten bolt to 100lbf/ft with a torque wrench(almost "trimmed it"), and had a hard time getting the lower ball joint to separate from the spindle.(i didn't have a pickle fork..you don't want to know). ..I used the press from advance auto. Worked fine for install. Freezing them made it even easier. I just used a lot of PB blaster(my best friend for this project) and a BFH and large socket to remove. Disconnected the ABS sensor from its connector. Instead of risking breaking the sensor.
One oopsie...(as usual) as I was tightening one of the PITA camber bolts. I didnt notice the cam washer was not seated correctly. When I was finished I noticed both large cam washers were completely warped! Had to run to advance and get another moog bolt set. oh well. The clearance for the cam washers is very small. The washers, when seated properly, can only rotate a very small amount. I though they would rotate much more but there are metal strips behind the bracket that you cannot see that they go in-between.
On a good note, the alignment tech said I did a very nice job and could tell I really cared about the ST. I'll post the print out. Of coarse the toe was way off. I forgot to write down the number of turns when removing the tie rod end.(then took a nap) I left the jam nut only a half a turn off, so I was close enough. The camber and caster were actually in spec. Got lucky. I crossed my fingers though on the 10 mile trip to the shop.
Anyway, thanks for reading:banana:
...btw, almost 160K. uppers were shot. lowers surprisingly weren't terrible and tie rods weren't bad at all. Just thought I may as well do everything. I do have slight feathering on my tires.
Thanks to all on here for giving me the courage to do this job myself. It was nice knowing that if I ran into any issues you all would be here:haveabeer:
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