Yes there sure is, I have done this before and am in the middle of doing it again on another Contour.
1. Remove knuckle and good idea to replace wheel bearing - 34 dollars at O'reilly and have a machine shop press it out and in. Mine charges me 22.50 per wheel bearing.
2. Remove axle - rent slide hammer and puller for free from AutoZone.
3. Remove two back bolts.
4. If your tranny is touching the frame, you need a new fender/tranny motor mount. You can carefully jack the trasmission up a bit and the 2nd bolt from the front can be removed, if not use a grinder or hack saw to cut if off.
5. For the front bolt, grind one side of the head a bit - doesn't have to be too much The bolt should then slide out.
Assembly
1. Two back bolts should go in with no problem.
2. If you were able to pull the 2nd bolt from front by jacking atx then just reinsert same. If not, insert bolt from bottom and put nut on top - you must use a new self sealing nut, don't use the old nuts.
3. You can just slide in the first bolt if it is in good shape, If you replace the first bolt, just grind one side of the head off to insert it back in.
Again, I have already done this on one car and am doing it on my other.
The first and third bolts are about 10 bucks each. The second and 4th are about 5 dollars each. Nuts are 5 and 3 each.
When reassmbling, be sure to loosen the nut on the strut tower at the top. Loosen it as much as you can without taking it off. This will allow you much more room to swing the strut out to place on the ball joint when you press down on the control arm. If you don't do this.......well you'll have alot of fun.
P.S. Purchase a new c clip for the transaxle. If the damn Ford Parts guy says he never sold one, ignore him and make him look it up....they can get lazy.....
Regards,
Bob
