How to: Change shocks and struts!

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mazda 3 2007 cai,rkm ss,adv. timing mod.....
(wow) NOW I'VE GOT TO WARN YOU: THIS s*** CAN BE DANGEROUS IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TOOLS:

1:SPRING COMPRESSOR-They had it at autozone for 50$ rented (WHICH I DIDNT HAPPEN TO GET A PIC OF IT IN ACTION OR A PIC AT ALL! Damn)

2:AIR COMPRESSOR, OR BALLS OF STEEL AND A DAY THAT HAS 48 HOURS INSTEAD OF 24

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Without this good luck!

3: 17IN, 14IN, 22IN, AH, NEVERMIND. JUST BRING A WHOLE SET OF SOCKETS HAVE THEM BY YOUR SIDE! if you cant match it to the right size DONT DO IT! STOP HERE!

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4: Air rachet

5: Air hammer (If attainable; Damn this works magic!!!)

6: Impact gun

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Oh and a lighter for a lil' herbage (lol2)

7: The scissor jack from the trunk

8: A heavy duty jack

9: Jack stands

10: Heavy duty hammer, not a rubber mallet, a huge ass steal mallet and pry bar if you dont have the air hammer

11: Gloves for safety

12: About 100 rags

13: Googles

14: Pop up canopy for shade, and if you're unlucky like me, it poured bad while I did the front!

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Before I started

So the 1st thing you want to do is park car on flat surface. Next thing we do is position the jack under the car, jack it up, and put the car on jack stands. Next you want to remove the tire.

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(pic was after job)

After you take tire off remove break line 4rm the strut bracket by removing the clip that holds it.

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Then you want to unhook the ABS sensor and finally the sway bar endlink with a 14in socket.

:::MOST IMPORTANT TO AVOID DEATH! APPLY SPRING COMPRESSOR TO SPRING AND COMPRESS AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE::::

After all that, the strut will look like it's ready to just take the bolt out from the control arm, so proceed to take off the bolt that holds it in the control arm boot. You can see it in the pic with the brake line.
NOW nothing is holding the strut, so just pull it out and slip the new one in....HAHAHAHA **** no. Here's where you get the pry bar and mallet (if no air hammer).
What you want to do is angle the pry bar under the control arm. There's a gap it its into you need to hit that pry bar into the gap to spread it wide enough to get that strut out.
Hit it about 10x's until you think its stuck. If you hit it hard enough the strut will slide out. If you can't get it; spray WD-40 every 1-2 minutes let it soak in, then have at it again. I'LL SKIP A LITTLE BIT OF THE BANGING...
1, 2, 3-4 hours go by.... now strut slipped out finally!
Pop the hood, there is a single bolt left to undo. There are 3 nuts and one in the center, undo the bolt in the center and the strut should be able to be completely pulled out. Don't pull on the plastic cover that can stay up there. There's this damn bearing up in that piece. Don't get me started, I was showered with bb bearings and pissed cause I thought I broke something important!!! Just dont pull it!!!!!

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So anyways, now you have everything off. What ever you do, don't try to lower your car to get strut in! I had an incident you'll see in a bit... NEXT get the new strut and new spring.

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So, for reinstall you want to put the spring and strut together. Make sure you turn spring on strut until it can't turn anymore. You'll know when it stops. There's a gap and a little lip to hold it from turning anymore... Ok while the spring is on the strut, hook one piece of the compressor to the 3rd coil and the other to the second because you need to have room to work. Connect the other end of compressor to the strut itself. There's a lip the compressor can grab onto. Compress the spring completely and evenly you always want to compress evenly on each side. Turn on 5 times then alternate to the other.
Once compressed, slide the strut into that plastic cover I told you not to pull. After the strut is in, the hole to mount up top leave try to get bottom of strut into control arm boot put some grease or wd-40 to make it slide in. If you can get it aligned with the boot hole strut to hole that is, use the mallet or air hammer to get the strut in the boot. Once the strut is in the boot, put the bolt back in that holds strut in place at the control arm. Lastly, tighten the top mount bolt, re-attatch the endlink and the ABS sensor and brake line with the clip, then slap on the tire. All done with front strut!

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Now the rear is simple as can be.
6 major things to do, 3 on each side...

1st remove the endlink, not from sway bar, but from the control arm. You need an allen wrench to hold it because it turns. Also, you need a straight wrench, or if you have one that is a ratchet wrench, those kick ass! Remove the endlink from both sides. Keep in mind your rear end must be on jack stands by now!

Anways, loosen up the sway bar from its mounts, but don't remove you just need to push the sway bar down and toward the front of the car like this:

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After that, the sway bar is out of the way.

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You want to undo the bolt that holds lower control arm to the upper portion but: BEFORE YOU LOOSEN IT MAKE SURE YOUR SCISSOR JACK FROM YOUR TRUNK IS RIGHT UNDER, BECAUSE IF YOU DON'T, THE SPRING WILL FLY OUT RESULTING IN SOMEONES DEATH! OR A SERIOUS DING DEPENDING ON WHAT IT HITS.
Once unbolted, lower the jack slowly. That way spring will come out with its hands to the sky! Pull out spring, if you look under control arm there's the shock. Undo that bolt as well. The shock should just sit after undoing that bottom bolt at the top of the inside of the wheel well there's this:

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It came from or mounts to this spot:

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Everything from the outside by now looks like this:

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Now you simply want to undo the bolt that holds shock onto that mount shown in the pic. Hold top with a vice grip and then use a 13in. wrench to twist off. Once done, and old is off, slide in new shock and spring:

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Slide strut through control arm.
Re-attatch mount to shock.
Remount shock to top inside mounting point.
Rebolt shock at bottom of control arm.
There's this rubber gromet thingy for the spring slide that onto new spring. Slide new spring into place, making sure the spring is slid into the hole that holds it in the control arm, use your little handy black floor jack. Remount the spring. Get both endlinks in before you bolt hand tight. You always want to start off with hand then switch to a tool.
Anyways, get endlinks in, remount, tighten the sway bar and make it extra tight!!! Triple check all bolts with the rachet or torque wrench. Slap the tires on and test drive slowly if done right car will feel badass! Don't do it like I did the 1st time. I ****** up my cv joint and had to pop that off and put the bearing in that back together.

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And another angle:

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I took off and damn. I was like, "**** what did i do!" It was the cv axle on the passenger side. I let the car drop a bit too low when putting front strut on. It popped out it was a quick fix. Luckly, I caught on to it as soon as i got done.
I was tired. I did this by myself. It's usually a 2 person job. So anyway, if all goes well you should look like this by the end.

END RESULT! LOOK!

FRONT
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BACK
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WHOLE CAR LEFT
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WHOLE CAR RIGHT
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ENJOY AND HAVE A BEER! Oi!
 
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Nice post, I'm looking into doing mine soon. How do you like the KYB struts? Did you use KYB shocks too? You impressions of them after a few months would be great. Thanks
 
Hey nice walk through!! I think having a good attitude and being able to laugh is essential to working on cars. Otherwise you just get angry at every little set back and throw your torque wrench at the wall breaking it.

Very nice job and the humor is a plus! Thanks!
 
Probably ended up in the speed3 section because alot of people have been asking for a how to on the struts.

I do have to ask though, on the rears, I didn't have to mess with the end links one bit to take the shock out. Is that different from the non-speed?
 
but the sway bar is connected to the endlink it shouldnt be diff how did you get the sway bar to move??
 
un do the link, from the arm. and push down. IF hard, loosen the 4 bolts that mount it ot the frame, is should move. (i usually on all the ones i have done havwent needed to do mor ethan just unbolt links from arm.)

Even without a compressor takes me maybe 3 hours, with a compressor for only the front struts, its a 2 hour job 1 person.
 
Probably ended up in the speed3 section because alot of people have been asking for a how to on the struts.

I do have to ask though, on the rears, I didn't have to mess with the end links one bit to take the shock out. Is that different from the non-speed?

I think he did springs too.
 
ya i did springs and struts....5hrs total the hardest was the front ones like the rear you dont have to compress the spring...i didnt have to do anymore than wha =t i wrote i swear it, just pulled that endlink off and pushed the sway forward then undid the control arm, the rear was simple.
 
i dont know how dude did it in 3hrs and doing it without a compresser is just ridiculous thinkn bout it those springs are tough doesnt matter how fast you do it though its the quality of the work as long as your s*** is done right and safely....
 
i think he was saying without an air compressor. I have done the struts and shocks in about 3.5 hours or so. Thats using hand tools only and the manual spring compressors.
 
^ agreeeeeeed. I don't think you "need" the compressor like everyone says. more fun wrenchin!
 
oh ya wrenchn it is fun IT MAKES ME FEEL EXTRA MANLY LIKE IVE GOT COSMIC POWERS LOL...but i spoil myself and buy air tools...i guess i took my time then cuz i wasnt bout to **** up my own car
 
southendskin210 said:
2:AIR COMPRESSOR, OR BALLS OF STEEL AND A DAY THAT HAS 48 HOURS INSTEAD OF 24

LOL wish I both but had neither when I did H&R coilovers few weeks ago.

Biggest PITA was taking out the front strut from lower holder. After spending 2+hrs on it, I was just about to give up when I remembered I had a struct holder spreader tool back when I had a GTI (hand). With the tool, it comes out in seconds. Here's the link to the tool:

http://www.metalnerd.com/cat05.htm

I have the part MN3424 in the middle of the page.

It's not required but it sure makes life a whole lot easier when doing this.
 
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haha lol ya they're tough....imma buy that tool tho i work on cars as a side job thanks for the link!!
 
Did this job today. Only took two hours to do BOTH sides, as well as replace the brake pads. Some tips to make it faster and easier. First, loosen (do not remove) the three bolts holding the top of the strut to the strut tower. What this does is give you some play when you're trying to free the bottom of the strut from the steering knuckle (prevents binding).....AND once you free it from the steering knuckle you can remove those top bolts and take out the entire spring/strut assembly as one unit (which I highly recommend). Once I removed the pinch bolt from the steering knuckle I sprayed a LIBERAL amount of PB Fabulous "B'laster" where the strut fits into the steering knuckle and let it penetrate for about 10 minutes. WD-40 is great, but this stuff is WAAAAYYYY better! Then I found an allen wrench that the flat sides would fit snugly in the gap of the steering knuckle where the pinch bolt goes and rotated it just so the pointed ends would wedge it open. Then I placed the end of a 2x4 against the steering knuckle and tapped it with a hammer a couple of times and VIOLA!!! Popped right out!!! Once you've done that, as I stated before, you can remove the entire strut/spring assembly. Doing it this way you can comfortably and SAFELY compress the springs, remove the strut shaft bolt, and remove the strut bearing assembly with the dust boot and rubber stop and spring. Make sure you pull the dust boot up from around the base of the strut BEFORE you attempt to pull the strut bearing assembly from the top of the spring or you WILL have ball-bearings fly and escape to freedom! The dust boot, rubber stop and strut bearing assembly should all come out as one piece. There's really no need to replace the boot or stop unless they're damaged or you just want to for general purposes. If you do, keep in mind that they are interlocking and be very careful when taking them apart..........or you WILL be PISSED! LOL! Happy Motoring my Friends!
 
gLAD MY THREAD IS STILL HELPING YALL OUT.....THANKS FOR THE TOUCH UP BRO since then ive modified my techniques lol no more banging on control arms....
 
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