Any trustworthy on-line information on taking down the front suspension on a 1999 Honda Civic? Or recommendations on a good book?
#1 son sideswiped a car a few months ago, I'm finally getting a chance to take a look at things -- it'll need a lower A-arm and some steering components, at the least.
Three days of online access to factory documents for 10 bux.
--Winston
Check your mail
I have both the factory shop manual and the Haynes book for my Honda. The Haynes descriptions are quite similar and tell you when to seek professional help and sometimes gives work-arounds for special tools (which I make).
The factory manual assumes you ARE the professional help.
jsw
"Steve W." wrote in news:il7f9a$16c$ snipped-for-privacy@speranza.aioe.org:
What did you send him?
I should just get the Haynes manual -- it's the work-arounds and the "this is when you need professional help" that, well, helps.
I think you will find that Honda front suspension dis assembly to be a straightforward mechanical process. I bet you can look at it for 5 minutes and have it down.
Remove the brake caliper mount w/caliper, disconnect hose. Remove outer tie rod end from steering knuckle (back the nut off, smack the side of the joint smartly with a hammer) Remove the strut nuts at top, under hood. Remove strut bolts at the knuckle. Remove sway bar at lower arm. Remove lower arm.
Rex wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@z27g2000prz.googlegroups.com:
No need to do this just for the lower control arm.
If the damper is being replaced as well, just remove the 14mm bolt and move the hose aside. No need to open the hydraulics.
No need to do this just for the lower control arm.
Tie rod end is best disconnected using the correct tool.
No need to do this just for the lower control arm.
It's a damper, not a "strut". And you need to undo the bolt that joins the damper fork to the lower control arm. The steering knuckle is not connected to the damper. Honda did not use struts on the Civic until 2001.
Some pics here, complete with a mistake by me. You get to guess what the mistake was.
"Tegger"
Cotter pin?
"Phil Kangas" wrote in news:ilbrk9$j23$1 @news.eternal-september.org:
Failure to put the nut back on before applying pressure to the stud.
The stud collapsed, requiring me to file the threads down before the nut would fit back on the stud again.
"Tegger"
heh heh, that's _never_ happened before, eih? ;>)}
"Phil Kangas" wrote in news:ilbskl$m6f$1 @news.eternal-september.org:
Won't ever happen again, I can tell you that.
Only thing I saw was you pressing out the stud without support on the threads, Not a problem if you're installing new ones but if you want to re-use them it could cause problems.
Oh and you didn't clean the parts, paint them and pimp them to fit in with the tuner crowd... I mean GEE where is the hot NEON glow paint....
"Steve W." wrote in news:ilbt9l$5q0$ snipped-for-privacy@speranza.aioe.org:
That was it. Pretty dumb, in retrospect.
It did. It collapsed the threads, as one of the other pictures show. I won't be doing that again, of course.
I used that to paint my siding. The neighbors hate it.
Nice site you have there. I replaced my timing belt in December and sympathize with the pain you describe:
jsw
It happens to the best of us. I've had more than a few of those OOPS moments.
Can I keep this to show you the next time.....
Don't blame them. We had a ricer drop off parts for powder coat and actually had each pair of parts tagged for different colors. Made me wretch just thinking about the way it would look. I can understand it if they were using a camera to watch for suspension travel issues. Then the different colors would help you see what was going on.
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