Macross
Member
- First Name
- Nick
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2020
- Threads
- 3
- Messages
- 23
- Reaction score
- 24
- Location
- Louisville ky
- Vehicle(s)
- Nissan frontier, civic si
Also forgot to mention, when I specify the order of installation, I mean install the bolts in that order loosely, once all of them are installed, then tighten them all down.Yep they do, they're not even very stiff, you can put them on by hand.
After fooling around with this for days I can say that it's not that bad if all your doing is either of the lower ball joints. You have to remove the caliper, rotor, and rotor dust shield screws. Then rotate the rotor shield 90 degrees. Its easiest if you remove all of the bolts for both ball joint and lower knuckle bracket. Two bolts for the large upper lower ball joint, one torx bolt holding it to the lower ball joint braket, two bolts holding the lower ball joint bracket to the inner knuckle, one 17mm long, one 14mm short, and finally the castle nut for the lower ball joint to the lower control arm. You have to use a ball joint seperator tool on the lower arm. Advance auto parts sells one for 26 dollars. After the bolts are removed and the ball joint separated, you should be able to pull down on the lower control arm and use a screw driver to lever out the whole assembly with both ball joints. It is possible to remove just the upper lower large ball joint by itself. You still have to loosen everything except the castle nut on the lower ball joint.
Reassembly is tricky. There is an order to it. I would put just the lower ball joint and bracket in first getting the lower ball joint through the lower control arm and placing the castle nut to hold it in place. Then align the lower bracket with the inner knuckle but don't worry about the bolts just yet. Then lift maneuver the assembly to get the upper lower ball joint into place. At this point everything is there except the 5 bolts that hold everything. Start with the short 14mm bolt on the lower ball joint bracket. You have to align and put that one in first. After that putting the long 17 mm bolt in is relatively easy. After that putting the two 19mm bolts into the upper lower ball joint is very easy, there is no tension. Finally place and tighten the torx bolt holding the upper lower ball joint to the lower ball joint bracket.
Fyi for some reason honda states that the 19mm bolts on the upper lower ball joint should never be removed and that if they are the entire outter knuckle should be replaced. Keep in mind this is the ball joint that the hard race joint replaces. I don't see any differences in the aluminium or bolts that would make honda say this, they reinstalled just fine. Along the same lines, honda basically states that every bolt in the suspension system of the car is one time use and to "replace with new bolt" I think this is a convenient money grab technique that takes advantage of routine maintenance minded honda owners that will add another 100 with of bolts to their carts. It's also worth mentioning that honda has huge parts delays and I wonder how long it would take if someone actually ordered all of these specified "one time use" parts.
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