Hey guys chrisfix here and today I'm going to show you how to install a brand new front suspension in your car or truck So we're gonna go from this old worn-out two hundred thousand mile rusted suspension to this a completely brand new front suspension Every part is brand new and the best part is we're doing this at home on jack stands. We're not using a lift We're not doing anything fancy. We're using all common hand tools The only tool that isn't common is gonna be the bearing and ball joint. Press don't worry You can rent these from your local parts store for free and if not You could get it pressed out at a shop real quick and easy now to give you an idea of what we'll be doing I told you we're literally doing the entire front suspension Every nut and bolt that I'm gonna install I will cover how to install it properly from snap rings to cotter pins torquing them down Using the right thread Locker. We're gonna do the lower control arm the upper control arm I'm gonna show you how to press in a bearing and a ball joint into the knuckle I'm gonna show you how to install the hub a new strut tie rods the proper way to install this with the retaining clip for Safety also how to measure this so that you could get a relatively accurate alignment We're doing the brakes and an axle so everything and if you missed the first video where I remove all the old Rusted suspension pieces go check that out that's linked in the description in that video I show you some tricks on getting stubborn bolts out and I show you how to hammer out that old ball joint Which is stuck in there pretty good and the old bearing which is also stuck in there pretty good and at the end of that Video we were waiting for some paint to dry and now 24 hours later. That paint is completely dry so we're ready to get started and install our new suspension starting with pressing in the new ball joint and Bearing now a very simple but helpful trick the day before that, you know You're gonna be doing this job put your bearing and your ball joint in the freezer I couldn't put mine in the freezer. I'd get in trouble for doing that. So instead I made a little ice bath here So the bearing and ball joint are in here I'm gonna keep the bearing in there because we'll do that next but the ball joint is here and I can feel it is freezing Cold and the whole point to doing this is when metal is cold it shrinks So it'll make it a lot easier to press into the warmer knuckle So let me show you how to press the ball joint now The ball joint is gonna get pressed in the opposite way. We removed it except instead of hammering. We're gonna actually press it You just have to slide the ball joint in just like that And then we just need to press it into the knuckle now to press it into the knuckle we're gonna be using our Rented ball joint press and before we go and use this press even though this is rented We want to make sure that we take care of it so we don't break it And so the next user could use it without any issues So what you want to do is you want to get some grease I have high temperature grease here but any grease will do just get a bunch out like that and we're gonna grease the threads we want to lubricate the threads that's very important So just get the grease on there like that and then run it around a few times so that you could spread the grease out You don't know how many times I rent a tool and the threads are completely dry like this one which isn't a brand new tool so lubricate the threads that way we don't strip them out when we press the ball joint in and There you go You can see how evenly lubricated the threads are and this tool is ready to press in the ball joint And before we go and press the ball joint in I always like to double-check make sure that the same size so you can see The collar right up there meets up and then where that snap ring goes also meets up So these are the same exact size good now to press this ball joint in you want this to be? Completely dried don't lubricate it You just wanted to make sure that you cleaned it and smooth that we already did that with the 400 grit sandpaper Then we could add our ball joint right in there Press it in as far as you can by hand and now we're gonna take a hollow cup like this which will fit at the bottom here and it won't touch the ball joint the Ball joint will be able to get pushed in and it won't touch anywhere inside this cup And in this case the top of the ball joint Press fits perfectly on the shoulder or collar of the ball joint like that Then we can install the cup onto the other side of the knuckle and hand tighten it down to hold it in place So this is what we want to look like We have our ball joint, press pressing against the collar the outside of the ball joint So as that ball joint gets pressed inwards. Nothing is stopping it. And then finally there's just a little adapter here So it connects to this evenly and that's straight I'm gonna be using a ratchet if you have an impact gun, it's even easier But all you have to do is tighten this down until it bottoms out Now you might want to try the hammer the new ball joint in and that is something you could do But I prefer pressing it in because you're a lot less likely to damage it you can see how easily this is going in if yours isn't going in easy and you need a lot of force make sure it's Going in straight and once the shoulder of the ball joint bottoms out it touches the knuckle and can't get pressed anymore now we could unscrew the press and our ball joint is completely installed and now Just to double check to make sure the ball joint is pushed all the way in you Look and make sure that we could install our retaining clip right in there and when installing the snap ring or retaining clip It's important that you don't reuse the old rusty one get a nice new one that comes with the ball joint and install this So grab your snap ring pliers and slide the snap ring down the ball joint into the channel So it snaps into place like that Now you just want to take a quick look around and make sure it's all the way in and it is so now the ball Joint installation is complete. Next let's install the bearing now We could get our bearing out of the ice water and this bearing is freezing cold. That's perfect now we could go and press it in what we need to do is find a plate that fits on the Outside of the bearing so something like that. You can see how it fits right on the outside You don't want to press on the inside because you'll break the bearing you have to press on the outside and that looks perfect And then we want to find a plate that fits on the outside of the knuckle so it won't touch the bearing as we press it in just like that and Finally just like before we want to make sure that we lubricate the threaded piece of our press set and that'll make sure we don't Strip the threads as we press the bearing in so now let's install our new wheel bearing I always compare every part to make sure it's the same size and the correct part and this is good to go So to install this we're gonna press it in from this side. So let's get it in there Push it in as far as you can by hand So it holds itself in place then we'll get our plate on here slide the threaded bolt through the bearing and knuckle, then set this up so we could put the Other plate on and finally tighten it all down by hand to hold it in place now Let's get a wrench on the bolt and get a ratchet on the nut and let's start tightening to press the bearing in Just like the ball joint make sure the bearing is going in straight and not crooked which could damage the knuckle and it should go In pretty smoothly especially since the bearing is freezing-cold which shrinks it a little bit now Once the bearing is hard to tighten any further we are done and there you go a freshly installed wheel bearing now we can finish off with installing the snap ring use the snap ring pliers to compress that snap ring and Push it into the channel in the knuckle beautiful, finally Give it a quick inspection to make sure it's completely seated into the knuckle and it is and the last thing we need to do is install our hub which fits right into the bearing but before we do that now is when you would install your heat shield or Your dust shield. The only thing is this dust shield is shot. It's so rusted. It's just falling apart the other side I tried to fix and paint and make it look nice. But again, it's so rusted and falling apart I've decided I'm not gonna run these dust shields. These aren't necessarily needed what it does is it prevents the water from splashing up onto the brakes prevents brake dust from getting all over the Suspension components and also acts as a slight heat shield, but it's perfectly fine to run without them And the reason why I'm gonna run without them is because I can't find these they don't make them for the del Sol anymore They're out of stock everywhere and junkyard ones around here are just as rusty So for those reasons, I'm not gonna be running them now I do want to mention here when you're installing your new hub you can go from a four lug hub to a five lug hub There's a lot more five lug wheels than four lug wheels But I ended up getting a nice new wheel that I can't wait to show you guys. It's gonna look great on this car So I'm gonna stick with the four lug instead of going to a five lug So let's get this installed and all you have to do is you have to press this into there So grab an adapter from the bearing press kit and we're gonna slide that adapter over the hub like that then slide the threaded press bolt through the hub bearing a knuckle and finally use the plate that fits on the outside edge of the bearing and I'm gonna slide on another plate just so it spaces the Nut further away for more room good just like the bearing and the ball joint. You want to tighten this down? Until it bottoms out as you're tightening this make sure it goes in evenly and straight So keep going until it bottoms out and you'll know because it'll become impossible to move that ratchet Perfect. So that's bottomed out. Let's loosen this up and let's remove this bolt and press Beautiful that spins so smoothly now, we have the hub. We have the bearing and the ball joint installed into our knuckle We are all done here and we're ready to install this into the car as well as the rest of the suspension so let's get started so out with the old and in with the new now that we have the bearing ball joint and hub pressed in we're done with the hardest part the rest of These suspension parts are all bolt in this is very simple. I have a few tips and tricks I'm going to share with you to get this done a hundred percent and do it correctly But we're gonna get through this real quick and get that car on the ground. So let's get started and the first thing we're gonna install is the inner tie rod and the first thing that you want to do when installing a tie Rod is get the old tie rod This is why we didn't take that jamb nut off and remove the outer tie rod You want to get the old tie rod and we want to match it up. So it's the exact same size so screwed the inner and outer tie rod so that it is the exact same length as the Original inner and outer tie rod good now this isn't going to give you a perfect alignment It's going to give you an approximate alignment something that's good enough to get to the alignment shop safely Now what we measured is from the end of the tie rod the inner tie rod right here which mounts up against the steering rack And we measured all the way across that's even to these two studs So now with the tie rods even let's separate the inner and outer tie rod Making sure not to touch the jam nut and then get a paint marker and Mark the threads right where the gym that should be tightened to now we know exactly Where this gem that sits because we do have to remove this gem that in order to install the boot onto the inner tie rod So with our alignment mark right there Let's go get this installed and when installing a tie rod most tie rods come with some type of Retaining clip or pin that holds the tie rod end This is one of the most important safety features of your car your steering. You don't want this to come loose You could say they actually include red thread Locker on here already, so it doesn't come loose but there's a retaining clip This is a Honda style you can see there's two ears here What you're gonna do is when we tighten this down you can see right here. There is little indentations This is gonna get tightened down and then we're gonna get a hammer and we're gonna indent this retaining clip into those indentations So it locks it in place It won't turn and then these ears here these ears fit right into the slots on the steering rack So this can't turn Now we can install the tie rod and if your tie rod doesn't have thread Locker on the threads already You definitely want to add some and now we could tighten the tie rod into the steering rack by hand and once we get it Hand tight grab a wrench that fits onto the steering rack and grab a second wrench to torque down the inner tie rod to 40 Foot-pounds good next grab a hammer and punch and we need to indent the lock washer up into the tie rod Just like that you can see it's indented so it locks it in and let's do the same for the other side Perfect. So we're able to notch and hammer in those two bottom spots where it dimples into the inner tie rod But the two top spots are really difficult to get to there's no room here to use a hammer So what I did try doing is getting a pliers and crimping it with the pliers it indented it a little bit the bottom ones Are nice and indented so that should work perfectly fine. So whatever type of retaining clip your inner tie rod uses make sure you install it properly So your tie rod doesn't come loose now since our old boot was ripped. We're gonna install a nice new one so Let's slide that over the tie rod and get it down all the way and then we could zip tie the end of the boot so it stays in place when you turn the steering wheel and let's cut off the end of the zip tie and now we need To get the inside of our boot onto the steering rack and the easiest way to do that is to turn the steering wheel to compress the boot and then we can Get in there and push the boot over the end of the steering rack and move that metal Zip tie into place now to get the zip tie tight use a pliers to pull on it Then we can cut the extra tag end off with a snips good now turn the wheel back the other way And that's good to go Finally, let's add our Jam on to the tie rod tighten it until it's up against our green line Then we could thread our outer tie rod on all the way to the jam nut and get a wrench on the jam nut and one on the tie rod and tighten these two together basically as tight as you could get with two hands good now the last Thing to do is to tighten the grease fitting on so get it started by hand and then snug it down with a wrench Don't over tighten this just get it snug these will break if you over tighten them All right. So the tie rod is completely installed now Let's move on to the next part which is our upper control arm and a little trick before we go and install our brand new control arm these control arm bolts up here come loose from the factory so that you could adjust them while it's on the car the Problem is while it's on the car. These bolts are very difficult to tighten down There's just not a lot of space. You'll see that in a second So a little trick is to move this equal with the stock control arm and if you take a look at that just like that you can see this is completely Even and now we could go and tighten down these bolts as always I like to get a little bit of threadlocker onto the threads and these bolts get torqued down to 33 Foot-pounds you can see the old one and the new one match Identically so now to install this we just need to get this up here into the strut tower then let's add some medium strength threadlocker Onto the threads hand tighten both nuts onto the studs and torque them down to 47 foot-pounds and with those two fasteners torque down our Upper control arm is officially in here and now we can move on to the next step which is installing our new Strut we have to put Strut fork onto the new strut and to find which direction the new strut goes Let me show you with the old one. You see that locator notch right there There's the locator notch on the new one that helps us find which direction our strut goes We just locate it right into that little slot there you can see it fits right in and then we could grab our bolt add a little bit of thread Locker to it and This is a lot easier to do off the car than with the strut Hang in there and this gets torqued down to 32 foot-pounds Now, let's install the strut into the strut tower And all you need to do is carefully line it up and push it through the control arm into the strut tower Just like that then add some removable threadlocker to the threads hand tighten the fasteners down and then torque them down to 36 foot-pounds and with that torque down our strut is in now we're gonna be torquing down a lot of nuts and bolts and we have Already torqued down a bunch of them. So one thing to do to keep track of them I like to grab a paint marker like this Use a color that's gonna stand out like green and I like to draw a line that marks the nut and stud So not only do we know its torque But you could tell if it's loosening up and we'll get that last fastener right back there beautiful Now this is something you could do real quick That's gonna help you remember what's nuts and bolts that you've torqued down also later on when you go for your ride and you drive The car around you'll be able to reference this real quick and make sure none of these have loosened up so with these two fasteners in our strut is Completely in and we are ready for our next step which is to install the axle But before we push the axle into the transmission We want to clean the end of the axle here because this is going to get inserted inside the transmission and if there's any dirt or debris on here It could damage the transmission and make it wear out faster And another thing we want to do is we want to get some transmission fluid and lubricate the axle Especially the splines so that when we push this in it doesn't go in dry as you orly acts We'll just make sure that you have one of these retaining clips at the end that fits in this groove here If you have a new axle, you might have to install it if you're reusing the original one Make sure it's not broken and it's still in good shape this prevents your axle from falling out as you drive So in this case our clip was already installed and it looks good. Perfect Now since our axle is so long and we have to install all the way into the transmission right back there What I like to do is I like to grab a bungee cord hook it onto this bring and now this will help support the other end of the axle as we feed it into the transmission and One thing to be mindful of when you're installing. The axle is the seal around the outside of the axle It's a rubber seal. You don't want to damage it or Knick it because then you'll get transmission fluid leaking out So make sure when you're installing the axle it goes right down the middle and don't hit this outside seal So let's get that axle in there again making sure not to damage the seal and this will just click in with a decent push Good. All right, so that bungee cord trick works pretty good. It helps with these long axles It's basically an extra set of hands Now that our axle is installed one thing you want to do is if you lost transmission fluid you want to refill your transmission Make sure it's filled to the proper level that way your transmission will work right in this case. We didn't lose any fluid So we don't have to refill it and now we can move on to the last suspension piece the lower control arm after we get this installed we can put the knuckle in so let's go and install this now whenever you're installing a control arm or something with a rubber bushing like this a quick tip is to grab some silicone grease and Just coat the outside Of that bushing and this will help prevent squeaking also lightly coat the metal where you're going to mount the bushing this will make it a lot easier to slide the control arm in and then when you go to install the bolt you want to Coat the smooth part of the bolt known as the shank which is where the bushing rubs against and that will prevent rust and squeaks Then add some medium strength thread Locker to the threads and you want to barely tighten this down Do not tighten it all the way now The reason why we don't want to tighten this bolt or any bolts that go through bushings This bolt when tightened is gonna pinch that bushing since it's getting pinched that bushing won't be able to move now if we move this Control arm up to where the car is normally going to sit that bushing is now going to rip if it doesn't rip It'll just wear out a lot quicker so we want to tighten this only a little bit and we'll torque it down once Everything's together and we put a load on the suspension. That's very important. That's something you want to do anytime You install something with bushings? So for now we can let the suspension droop like that and let's go get this bushing back here installed now if you haven't noticed I like using medium strength thread Locker basically on all the suspension bolts and then I like to torque each one down to spec which in this case is 66 foot-pounds the thread Locker prevents vibrations from loosening the bolts as you drive and it also helps prevent the threads from rusting Wherever the threadlocker is applied good So with this bushing mount torqued down we didn't tighten the bushing the nut is back here that we need to tighten to squeeze this Bushing we're gonna wait to do that until the suspension is under a load. Okay? so the last thing we need to do is to get the lower control arm into the strut fork here and just like before since There's a bushing here. Let's get some silicone grease on here and the strut fork as well Now we can push the control arm into place which is a little hard because the bushing is brand-new actually Let's go from the top Which should be easier and sometimes using a rubber mallet to lightly tap this to line it up makes it a lot easier There we go. Next Let's install the bolt and don't forget silicone grease on the shank then lightly tap it in since it won't go in straight I'm gonna jack up the controller I'm just a little bit to line the holes up better then lightly tap it in. Perfect Now we can add some thread Locker and hand tighten the nut on Okay. Now let's get the weight of the car onto the front suspension and to do that We need to safely jack up the car. So it starts to lift off the jack stands like that Okay, so the jack is supporting the vehicle. We're slightly off the jack stands enough so that it's safe But we have the entire weight of the vehicle on the suspension Now we could tighten down all the bolts that go through bushings that we left loose We'll start by tightening down the strut fork to control arm bolt to 47 foot-pounds So with that bolt torqued down we have two more fasteners to torque down one We have a bolt right there and the other we have a nut that holds in a bushing back there now Those are more inboard of the car. They're more underneath the car don't go under the car because we do have the jack supporting the vehicle even though we're only Supported that much over the jack stands. We still want to be careful. We don't want to have our whole body under the car So torque the control arm bolt to 76 foot-pounds Then let's add some silicone grease to the rear control arm bushing on both sides and torque it down to 61 foot-pounds Since there's not enough space to get a torque wrench on here I'm gonna just be tightening this as much as I can with a wrench Good. So with all the fasteners that go through bushings torque down with the weight of the vehicle on the suspension I also mark those fasteners so that we could see if they loosen up now we can put the vehicle back on the jack stand and Install our knuckle now our axle splines into the knuckle into that hub that we installed. So we need to remove this axle nut And I always this on when I install the axle cause it prevents damage to the splines here and to the threads on the end This is a good little trick to keep your new axle in good shape while you install it Another little trick is to get some grease not a lot just a little bit and we're gonna lightly grease the splines You don't want to get grease on this end of the axle where the threads are just on the splines and that'll help the axle Install into the hub very easily. So now let's install the knuckle and get the axle through the hub Good, and we could put the lower ball joint into the control arm Now let's get the tire out attached to the knuckle All you have to do is push the tie rod into the hole and then we can install the castle nut and cotter pin So hand tighten the castle nut, and this gets torqued at 35 foot-pounds And with that castle nut to work down now we could add our cotter pin And in this case that cotter pin hole through the stud is being blocked by the castle nut So we can't get this in So what you want to do is you never want to loosen the castle nut instead tighten it slightly to get the slot in the castle nut to line up with the hole in the tie rod stud and Let's see if that worked. Perfect. Now we could bend one of the cotter pin ends around the castle nut Just like this and then we could bend the other side of the cotter pin around the other side of the castle nut And when you bend these around it prevents the cotter pin from coming out and now the castle nut can't loosen up now we want To add some grease so connect your grease gun to the fitting and pump some chassis grease into that tie rod You want to keep pumping until you see that tie rod boot expand a little bit That means it's filled with grease and we can remove our grease gun All right And that is how you properly install a tie rod from the castle nut to cotter pin set up to greasing it up Everything is done here. So now let's go and tighten down the lower ball joint again We have a castle nut and a cotter pin. This is a different style cotter pins a lot easier I'll show you how to use it. And this has some threadlocker from the factory So now we could just hand tighten this castle nut and finally torque it down to 43 foot-pounds Now we can add our cotter pin and this cutter prints pretty nice You just slide it into the hole and it pushes in like that and locks in place And since this ball joint is sealed and pre-greased permanently. We don't have to add grease now We can move on to the last step which is to tighten down our upper ball joint So let's remove the bungee cord since we don't need to support the axle anymore Then we could add some medium strength thread Locker to the threads of the upper ball joint and now we can push the ball joint Into the knuckle then hand tighten the nut and torque it down to 35 foot-pounds, finally Let's add the grease fitting make sure you don't over tighten it and make sure the fitting is facing the direction You could grease the ball joint in if the tire is on good then we could pump some grease into the ball joint So the boot expands a little and always clean the excess grease off because otherwise it collected dirt and makes a mess Beautiful now our suspension is completely installed. So let's go get our brakes on and any time you install new brake rotors Make sure you spray down the rotor surface with brake cleaner to remove the cosmoline grease that comes with them from the factory Otherwise, you're gonna contaminate your brake pads and your brakes won't work properly Next let's install the brake caliper which slides right behind the rotor like that As always our caliper bracket bolts head threadlocker and we can hand tighten each one To hold the caliper in place then torque each one down to 80 foot pounds and now I'm gonna add a little bit of anti-seize to the grease points on the brake caliper and Finally install the brake pad with the wear indicator on the inside of the caliper and then the other pad goes on the outside So let's close the caliper up and torque down the caliper bolt to 20 foot-pounds now the last thing to do is to secure the brake line so snug down these two bolts to about 7 foot pounds as Well as these back two bolts and Good, the brake lines are now held in place. So there you go Our suspension is completely installed and instead of installing these old steel wheels I figured now would be a great time to upgrade check out these new wheels so let's get it on the car tighten down the lug nuts and lower the car onto the ground and This is super important. The last thing we want to do is install the axle nut so get some medium strength thread Locker on the axle threads and hand tighten the nut on there then torque this axle nut to 135 foot-pounds Now we can add the center cap And then Jack the car up and put a jack stand under the car so we could take the wheel off Because remember we need to indent this axle nut into the axle so it locks in place and can't loosen up just Like that beautiful now we can get the wheels back on get those lug nuts on Remove the jack stand and lower the car back onto the ground and finally torque these wheels down to 80 foot-pounds in a crisscross pattern All right with our axle nut properly torqued down the wheels are on the lug nuts are torqued down Our old suspension is completely removed and our brand new front suspension is installed there's one more thing that you need to do to do this job a hundred percent and that is We need to get a wheel alignment. So we're up on the laser alignment rack And as I expected our alignment is all off from replacing every suspension part, but that's about to get fixed All right much better. Everything's all lines. They did an awesome job here. So let's go for a ride I wish you guys could feel this. It feels like a brand new car. Holy smokes What a difference this thing feels Amazing now. It's so precise. It actually goes where I wanted to go and I'm not afraid to drive it Whoo now, that is what I'm talking about. What a difference and there you go That is how you remove that old rusty worn-out two hundred thousand mile suspension from your vehicle and install a high quality Brand new front suspension the proper way. I can't believe how good this car drives It feels like a totally different car. Those wheels. Also look amazing check that out really sets that car off. What a difference also I got an eBay turbo kit for the car surprise This is gonna be a blast to install So we're gonna have a lot of fun with that now the idea what this car is. We got it. So cheap Let's do a budget build something that you guys could replicate something you could do at home realistically on a budget so we're gonna have a fun little car to Experiment and play with and teach you guys a lot along the way like in this video where you learned how to install a brand? New suspension as always. I hope the video was helpful If it was remember to give it a thumbs up If you're not a subscriber Consider hitting that subscribe button and turn on that notification bell for more videos just like this and be sure to check out the links In the description, I link every product and tool I used in this video so you could easily find them stay tuned
