I am ready to set this car on fire

[gmorrell]

If it wasn't so much fun to drive, it would be burning in the driveway as I type.

I've changed struts on plenty of cars, but swapping struts on my '99 CSVT is a whole new barrel of frustrations and swearing. Between Saturday afternoon and 3PM Sunday, I have the right front done, this includes two trips to the parts store, one this morning for new lower A-arms, as my <60K mile BAT arms had completely blown ball joint boots and serious rips in the bushings. (2-bolt Contour A-arms - worst suspension part design EVER! The Ford bean counters won - we lost.) Later, second trip was for a longer spring compressor, and my old outside claw type compressor wouldn't grab enough coils of the spring to get the length short enough for re-assembly.

Hint: Buy or rent one of the long compressors that runs the threaded bolt down the center of the spring, crank it down until it's shorter than it needs to be, then install the outside claw compressors to keep it short so you can remove the center bolt compressor and put the spring back on the strut.

Never seen a spring this long: 17" free length, 5.5 coils, 6.25" wire centroid wind diameter. It's about 4" between turns in the middle, the ends are lightly closed, but you have to compress it to <10" end-to-end to reassemble the strut, and that means you have to grab a lot of turns.

These BAT Euro sport struts had better be worth it.

Rant off, going back to the garage to finish the left front and call it a weekend. The rears are next weekend.

I need a beer.

[troll96se]

i find it easier to just remove the whole strut/knuckle on the front end, the rear is cake. its basically the same design as the taurus/sho.

[jrichardson]

When we did mine it was very simple. The only real issue was getting the old strut out of the knuckle (rusted in), I thought it was alot easier then the Saturn we did at school, three top nuts two pinch bolts at the knuckle and a nut at the top holding it all together. Just used a compressor that uses two big claws that you tighten down to get the spring compressed enough. Sorry to hear you has such an issue with yours.

[Justin71]

Did mine about a month ago maybe two the autozone conpressor did the job but got threw the fronts and one rear in about a hour get to the last one and the bottom pinch bolt and one turn the bolt snapped easy as butter very frusterating lol

[SVOFANATIC]

You know suprisingly when I did my coilovers last friday it only took me 5hrs to do them I was suprised. If you need a good spring compressor get a loan a tool from pepboys I used that one for my springs worked great. The backs are pretty easy if you figure out the trick. When you get to them if you have a pry bar (this may not be the "proper" way) and jack up on the rear knuckle then where the strut hits the subframe stick the pry bar lower the strut back on to the prybar then seperate the knuckle from the strut how ever you choose just don't pull the prybar out. Then once it is out push down on the prybar and it'll lift the strut over the the sub frame stopper took me 10 mins to get the second one out when I did it.

[95_Mystique]

Never had too much of a problem doing struts on either of my cars. I never used a spring compressor either.

[jrichardson]

I never used a spring compressor either.

Then you sir must have some monster hands because the spring has to be compressed.

[95_Mystique]

Eh, my hands arent that big. I just force it in.

[compudude86]

I am ready to set this car on fire

If it wasn't so much fun to drive, it would be burning in the driveway as I type.


...I need a beer.

Congratulations! you passed initiation, welcome to the brotherhood of the contour, the Alpha Beta Contour!

I've screamed that title line in my driveway many a weekend. I've skinned my knuckles, skinned and bruised my arms, etc dealing with the suspension system of this car. The new springs will most likely be shorter than the old ones, it even warned that this was normal on the box of MOOGs I got. I assume in 15 years metallurgy has changed and they found composite metals that react better and use less, or they changed the coil design. the rear are easier to deal with than the front, but my recommendation is get the autozone loaner compressor, I bought a cheap set of claw compressors and they are useless, the bolt is just stripping up the claws, for safety reasons I am tossing my old ones. I am going to wait on my rear springs until my steering and suspension class in the fall, they have a wall mounted tool that I believe is pneumatic, and automatically compresses the spring on the strut!!!

[troll96se]

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=...=0&FORM=IDFRIR
this is the one that i've been using for like 11 years, no issues.