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I finally finished the front! The pictures speak for themselves…

After on the left, before on the right.

You can see that it’s about 1.5 inches lower now…

Yay! One strut is in with the new springs!

Damn, this surely was the longest evening… I managed to get the control arms out, all 4 of them. The ball joints were especially difficult, until I read a very helpful post.

After removal, I discovered that the passenger side torque control arm had a busted grease seal, which I’m going to assume had caused the joint to wear out and generate the popping noise I was hearing. I did replace the wheel bearing assembly though, just in case… why not, it was only $300 worth of parts!

Passenger side ball joint with busted grease seal.

Here you can clearly see the busted seal. I’m sure all the grease came out and it’s unable to hold the torque from the car moving.

Where the control arms mount to the frame.

And the stearing knuckle where the ball joints mount...

So far I’ve managed to waste about $100 in tools that proved to be un-needed. Live and learn.

Instead of enjoying friends and fireworks this 4th of July weekend, I thought, “hey, why not tear the shit out of my car?” Seemed pretty reasonable at the time… well, its turned into, like all car projects, more than I thought it would. Of course I’m having fun though, lots of it. For me, it’s a pleasure, my zen time, me time, and I get lost in the work. So I love it. Seriously, I love it.

My project: Install high performance breaks and new springs, and while I’m at, fix that popping noise in the front suspension (popping noises are never good). I started out by dismantling the front of the car – originally I suspected that the control arms had bad bushings, which would explain the noise. At least that’s what the forums said. Well, after destroying one of the bushings I realized that they were fine. But what the heck, I was down there and dirty anyway, so I decided to rip them all out. After 3 days of hot sweaty work (it was really warm last weekend!) I had managed to damage $200 worth of parts and now I need replace just everything that moved. Not an easy task!

This morning I dropped off the struts and new front springs at the auto shop (I don’t have a hydrolic press so I’ll let the pros handle this part) so they could install them for me. When I walked in the door, people where acting like I was carrying a loaded weapon – “those springs could fly off at any moment and rip a guys face off!” Turns out that’s what happened there not too long ago. Funny. I think. So, $110 later, the new springs are installed and waiting for pickup.

What follows is a photo journal of the work as it stands this evening…

This is what it looked like before I started:

Stance before the new springs

Note the spacing between the top of the tire and the fender. It’ll be lower with the new springs. Not ricer style and slammed, but hopefully stylishly low, like the AMGs.

The old springs and struts before removal

The car is up on the jack stands with the wheel hanging free exposing the strut and spring.

Wheels off and showing the old disk brakes

Drivers side disk brake and control arm. See the darker area at the bottom of the strut? That is grease from the wheel bearings. Like the popping noise, not good either.

Control arm with the suspect bushing

The shinny disk is where the suspension bolt goes. It holds the control arm bushing in place. I thought they were bad, so I ripped it out. Not good. Now I have to pull the whole control arm out, take it to a shop, and have new bushings installed. That $28 part is going to cost me $200 to replace. Me sad. But happy to be getting new parts in!

Strut removed with old spring in place

The passenger side strut and old spring. Can’t wait for the shiny greenies to be in! And my big feet.

The wheel well where all fancy new goodies are going

Passenger side tire well with caliper hanging by a piece of coat hanger. I knew those damned things would be useful someday!

New front springs - green and shiny - why?

I’m not sure why the springs are green, you’ll never see them again unless you get down with a flashlight, in which case I migh suspect that you are up too no good. The front will drop by about 1.6″ and the rear about 1″. Not too agressive, but definitely not stock either. Reminds me of my low rider in high school. Yeah that’s right, I had one, and you are jealous. Don’t be, it was a piece of crap!

Tomorrow I’ll install the struts, the new wheel bearing assemblies and rip the control arms out so the new bushings can be installed. I’ll need yet another tool for that last part, and fortunately I love buying tools. Seems I can never have too many tools.

In case you are thinking, “dude, wtf? take it into the shop!”, I’m actually saving gobs of cash. The $150 in tools, $1200 in parts and sweaty afternoons would cost about $3000 at a shop.