Crown Commoddities
On my way to a comedy show last night, I felt my brakes go out. I thought “simple fix” I can drive it like this. Then the thump came as the speedometer stopped. I got a little nervous. I remembered I hit a curb a while back. “REMEMBER THAT”. Well, when I took the tire off, the whole wheel assembly just plopped down. Good thing this tutorial is on Youtube. Thanks Vsvenson for Videos.
So I was forced to change my front strut cartridges, busted ball joints, and a tie rod end on the 944. From my research, this was suppose to be a 90 minute job. I did it in four…..days, loosing time because of lack of tools, and my car got towed by the city without the wheels. (THOSE BASTARDS) Anyway…………….
1. With the car on ground with the tires on. Remove the top strut nut.(Everyone said use an impact wrench which I did not have. So I tried it by hand at first…WHAT WAS I THINKING)
So I took it down to Harry at the Joe’s Mobil Service (Franklin and Argyle) and he backed the nut out with the impact wrench. Thanks Harry.
2. Jack up front of car on stands high enough to clear wheels by a few inches. Remove the wheels and sway bar drop link.
3. Push down the control arm far enough to drop the strut shaft from the upper mount and carefully pull it clear of the front fender. If your shocks were toast like mine were, the assembly will just fall out..LOL
4. With the strut clear of the fender you can pull the spring easily. Remove the threaded cap on the housing.(This took me a while because I was using a oil filter remover, go get a pipe wrench from Home Depot and save yourself some sunlight and self esteem.) Check the level of the existing oil in the housing with a pipe cleaner or something.
5. This part was tough to me. I put the strut protector on. Then I put the spring on. One the spring was on I push the strut down and locked it in place with vise grip pliers. I carefully slipped the strut assembly back under the fender. Took my jack and raised the control arm while guiding the shaft back into the upper mount. Make sure the spring is are set correctly correctly and re-installl the upper strut nut by hand.
6. If just doing struts. Put the wheels back on, lower the car, bounce it several times to make sure it seats, and use an impact on the upper nut.
BUT my ball joints were shot so now that I had the struts assembled and jacked up, I decided to REPLACE MY BALL JOINTS.
1. I pushed down on the control arm to expose the broken ball joint.
2. The early 944 ball joints were riveted in. The replacement ball joints bolt in. So using a drill and drill bits for metal, I dipped the small drill bit in oil and slowly started drilling. (I used a 9.8v drill so the battery needed recharging a couple of times which added to the time.) Once I had a hole through the control arm, I switch to a bigger bit. One I had the bigger hole through the control arm, I used a big flat head screwdriver and a hammer to pry the rivet heads off giving me a clean piece of metal.
Byron Bowers Live 