well here it goes, lets hope it is useful to someone! my guide to changing your springs,
this took me 2.5 hours you can probably do it faster if you dont have a million ciggarettes and drinks while your doing it LOL but i was in no hurry so meh
tools you will need, NOTE no specialist tools are needed!
12mm spanner
14mm spanner
17mm socket
19mm socket
21mm socket
2x hydraulic jacks (this will make sence a touch further on)
2 car stands,
rattle gun makes life easier but a standard ratchet/breaker bar will do the trick
spring compressors
leather gloves (or the nice mechanics ones if you have them)
lets start at the back and work our way forward
1- jack the rear of the car up and place some car stands under it for safety! you can see i have jacked it up in the middle of the rear sub frame, if you dont have a rattle gun now is the time to crack the wheel nuts, before you lift the car up off the ground!
2- remove the wheels, using the 21MM socket
3- now you have the wheels off we can look under the car at teh suspention, nothing special here...
you need to remove the 2 lower bolts and nuts, the one holding the shock absorber on to the hub and the one holding the hub to the lower controll arm! (i think its 19mm)
3- take note of the position of the jack on the lower controll arm this is important! as you will be moving it up so you can remove the bolts from the hub! then after you have moved it up/down to get the bolts out easy
4- start jacking it to almost the top of the suspention travel as you jack it up you will notice that the hub moves out a bit when its almost at the top pull the hub out of the arm! just pull it out from the arm with a bit of force and it should pop out, then you can let the jack off giving you access to the spring!
5- push the lower control arm down untill the spring becomes unseated and you can tip it over a bit and get it out!
clean the dirt out of the spring rubbers then start putting it back together, make sure the rubbers are on in the right spots, fit it back in.
lift up the arm with the jack and wriggle the hub back into the hub, attatch shockie.
make sure the suspention is at normal height before doing up the bolts, this is so the bushes arent under stress, then do up bolts, put wheels back on, remove jack stands, let the car down slowly and BAM
now for the front, its slightly more complex but if you have done the back and not struggled, then it will be just as easy!
1- jack the car up by the sub frame in teh middle then place jack stands at each side
2- remove wheels
3- loosen off the top strut bolts, with your 14mm spanner. remove the back two, and leave the front one on about 3 turns, this will hold it there when the hub is removed from the strut!
4- take the 12 mm spanner and remove the two bolts holding on the brackets for the brake line, and ABS sensor wire, now is a good time to remove the sway bar (17mm nut just up and to the left of the main hub bolts)
5- now its time to remove the hub from the strut! loosen off the 2 bolts right behind the ABS and brake lines (19mm from memory) im pointing at the top one!
6- now you have the hub loosened off remove the bolts, then pull it out and tip it to the front of the car so there isnt any preassure on teh lines and its out of the way
then grab the strut lift it up and remove the last bolt (make sense now why i left it
)
7- mark the top plates to each other with white out, paint pen, what ever, then mark the bottom spring plate to those marks, this is important!!! make sure you do it!!
put your spring compressors on like so, and start compressing the spring untill its not being held captive! use a 17mm socket to remove the top bolt thats holding the plates on to the spring/shokie arm (its in the middle at the top)
then do the opposit to re-install!! you wont need the spring compressors to get the new spring in, IT should be JUST captive, you can push it down a touch to get enough thread for the nut to get on!
8- put the strut back in, 3 bolts on, then 2 hub bolts, put the sway bar back on, then the ABS and brake lines, wheels back on, car stands out, jack out.... done
now take the car for a drive, and enjoy it!! dont forget, it will lower a touch more as the suspention settles in
