when installing lowering springs where do you break the A-arm ? at the top of the strut or the botton of the strut where it bolts to the caliper

 

I've heard that you should hit out the blot that hold the controll arm to the caliper...personally I took tyhe 2 bolts out of the shock where it attaches to the caliper...the shock stays there but you can drop the whole assembly.

 

Removing the two nuts on the bottom of the strut is the easiest way to do it. The top strut bolt is a pain to get out unless you have an impact gun or do a simulation of it by getting a box wrench and hitting to with a hammer with a quick steady blow.

 

Or you can remove the three bolts that hold the top of the strut perch. There should be rivets that hold the camber plate pretty snugly in place, and you'll want to get an alignment after lowering the car either way.

 

here is a good guide to installing springs, i will be going this soon myself for the steeda sport springs I ordered from MT


http://www.dndgarage.net/springinstall.htm

 

Yeah I almost did it that way too but I didn't want the shock to be in the way...both ways are a hell of a lot easier than getting out the stupid bolt.

 

I also did this, although I used a hydraulic jack to compress the spring while doing the work and then let it down easy to get rid of any remaining preload.
The new springs slid in easy since they were a lot shorter than the stockers.

Great time to also swap out the struts and shocks - wish I'd done that at the time, but the car only had 15000 miles on it, so...

Guess I'll just have to get a little more wear on them first!

tripleblack

 

Awesome, another steeda sport guy...mine come tommorrow. Anyways, thanks for the tips guys. I think my dad and I are going to try and do the install ourselves, but I gotta order some new shock/struts first.