Originally posted by Shaun G:
Simply stated, the A arms just will not drop low enough to remove the struts.



Yeah I can vouch for that!

I'm in the process of doing mine now, we're putting on the BAT/Bilstein combo. Both rears didnt take too long, but we COULD NOT get the strut on the front out until we popped the knuckle off the ball joint. We used a Pickle fork, drove it in with a BFH and then slid a giant pipe over the end and pried the CRAP out of it and that finally got it off. Of course we couldnt seem to do this without tearing the boots on the joints so now I'll need new ball joints.

But ... what's even worse is trying to get the lower balljoint back on. Even with me practically hanging off of a huge screwdriver with a 3' pipe over the end, the arm can only go so low before it just hits the subframe cutout and stops, about 1/2 inch too high to slide the ball joint stud into. After a ridiculous amount of prying, while jacking the knuckle up and PUSHING it in we *somehow* managed to get the stud back in.

It seems to me that Ford could have just cut the contol arm cutouts in the subframe a little lower, maybe just 1/8", and that would let it swing low enough to clear the knuckle and make this job a HELL of a lot easier!!

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