Found a pic featuring a New Edge Mustang on the H&R Supersport springs (no isos). Hell, I may have posted this exact pic earlier in this thread!
I make fun of how "supa-slaaamed!" that it's gonna be but honestly? Not really that low -- and these are considered the lowest springs available for the car!
Last edited by novicius; February 21st, 2017 at 07:29 AM.
Hah! Told you! (I completely forgot to look that up)
Man, peoples is nuts. After you get the strut off, just motor down to any place that works on cars and have them bust off the nuts with an impact. It's worth the two minutes of their time and your $10 or $20!
Ooooooooorrr... head thee over to Harbor Freight and get an electric impact wrench:
http://www.harborfreight.com/power-t...nch-68099.html
230 ft lbs is *probably* enough for most lug nuts and strut top bolts. If not, return it. Seriously worth $40 ($50 - 20% coupon!) for the experiment.
Good tip -- also, I do have an impact wrench & air compressor.
It's the instructions that came from H&R that said try to loosen that nut while the strut was still in the car.
That seems like crazy talk! Although I have never dismantled a Mustang strut, more or less struts are struts. Remove strut, attach spring compressors, bust off/a nut (grab a sock) with an impact, reassemble.If you have clearance it's sometimes easier to attach the compressors while the strut is on the car and you can use its weight to compress the spring, but you can also do it off the car. Maybe H&R is assuming you're a regular guy without air tools?
Yeah about those spring compressors: how do I safely open them up if I don't have a vise?
My plan is to use the floor jack to hold the spring in place, pull the bolts to the hinge of the LCA and then use the hydraulics to uncompress the old spring and press the new spring in. Bad idea ?
I may not be following - I assume since LCA we're talking about the front end, and struts, yeah? So, you need to free the spring compressors from the old spring?
Should not be a problem - remember you don't need to compress the spring at all initially, you're just capturing it so it doesn't sproing out of control when you [try to] remove the strut hat. You only need to capture some of the spring while it's contained by the strut, and you can do that totally off the car. The strut is what limits the droop, so all you'll need to do is jack the front end up, remove the top bolts and the bolts at the knuckle, then remove the strut as a unit. Then attach the compressor to provide a limit and back off the compressor once you have the hat off.
I'll bet you can google the free length of the spring so you know what to expect. On modern cars, there is typically not much preload. I would expect just a few inches, a couple coils. If you capture half the spring, leave half the compressor available, you should not have any issues or surprises.
If there is a monster preload, you can use two pair of compressors - loosen the first pair to the max amount, install the second, remove the first, loosen the second. I've only ever had to do that once - and that was on that Focus I parted out where the strut was MANGLED and the spring had a dangerous bulge to start. Like me.
TSG, instructions from here.
So they're uncompressing the spring using a floor jack. Yes/No?7. Strut. Remove the 3 bolts on the strut tower to remove strut. (see picture) (15mm)
Once you have removed the bolts, GENTLY lower the jack, guiding the strut down, making sure it doesn’t hit the inside of the wheel well. Now, there is a plastic/rubber lining in the wheel well. The strut may get caught up on it….just maneuver it around until it pops loose. I ended up jiggling it and pushing up on the liner to get it done. Keep lowering the jack until it won’t go down anymore, taking care to have your buddy hold the strut as it’s coming down. (you will hear a POP, that’s the sway bar coming off of the sway bar end…don’t freak.
Now, the spring won’t pop out YET. Once the A-arm is all the way down, use a prybar to pop the spring out of the arm. Be careful, use a series of quick tugs and it should come out no problem.
Last edited by novicius; February 22nd, 2017 at 09:56 AM.
Ooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhh.
The Mustang has struts but not MacPherson struts... WTF? Is this 1970???
Because the car has a discrete spring and strut, the strut captures the spring in the a-arm. When you remove the strut, you remove the a-arm's limit and the spring would be free to spring. Keeping a load on the a-arm with the jack keeps the spring captured. Lowering the jack eventually frees the spring (mostly, you'll likely still need to pop it out with a prybar). This is how old cars with shock/spring combos work - it's just really unusual to employ a strut but not a MacPherson strut - I can't imagine what the point of that is... maybe a low-cost redesign of an existing suspension? The Fiero is sorta similar.
Reinstalling is just the opposite - place the spring in the a-arm, use a jack to capture it, then reinstall the strut. You shouldn't need spring compressors at all, as I'm sure that H&R spring is probably many inches shorter than the original. You'll likely just need to set it in place and jack up the a-arm. I sure do like installing lowering springs.
Man, I really want to know more about that front suspension!
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