New front bushings, ball joints, sway bar mounts...

I've just been told I need to pretty much replace my front suspension... bushings, lower ball joints, sway bar mounts. $1100.00 repair.

1996 Camaro, 3.8L, 5-spd. manual. ~130,000 miles.

Which pretty much moves me to give up on my car. Any advice?

[shawnc16]

Uhm.. do it yurself and save about 900 bucks

[meissen]

Why would you give up on your car? Do it yourself and you're gold.

[Virtue]

i can help you do its easy

[mister_grendel]

Front end suspension repair

Thanks, you guys; I appreciate the information. If it really is practical for me to do it myself, I'd love to give it a try.

Would replacing the control arms (like with Spohn tubulars) require removing or compressing the spring/shock? I'm eyeballing it, and looking over the Chiltons book, and I'm not sure.

[1BADAIR]

the uppers would require the strut to be removed. no need to compress it though. Just don't remove the center nut on the mount(which is not possible until its completely out of the car on an F-body).
lowers do not

[freakshow]

D.I.Y. I did and it saved me $600 in labor.

[white95birdta]

i was looking into doing the same thing myself when i was searching how to replace my rear end. on the ls1howto site the rear end removal write up shows how to take off pretty much all the suspension stuff in the back.

[mister_grendel]

Front suspension rebuild

I had the car up on jackstands, and had a good look. I'm beginning to think that if I'm going to tear it down, I should replace the shocks as well. More than one source has cautioned that if the spring/shock assembly gets out of alignment, you won't be able to re-install it. Everything seems to be lined up by nuts/bolts, except maybe the rubber boot at the top of the spring. Is that what they're talking about?

the uppers would require the strut to be removed. no need to compress it though. Just don't remove the center nut on the mount(which is not possible until its completely out of the car on an F-body).
lowers do not

[Virtue]

I had the car up on jackstands, and had a good look. I'm beginning to think that if I'm going to tear it down, I should replace the shocks as well. More than one source has cautioned that if the spring/shock assembly gets out of alignment, you won't be able to re-install it. Everything seems to be lined up by nuts/bolts, except maybe the rubber boot at the top of the spring. Is that what they're talking about?

i think what they are saying is when u break down a strut and put it back to gether not eveything lines up I.E. when u goto put the bolts in the top mount the bottom mounting holes will more then likely be way off.

all you gotta do it turn the bottom of the strut and hold the top, depending on how strong you are it could be difficult. its not that easy for even me

[steddy]

I'm taking care of everything, but the front shocks and sway bar mounts. I found a couple front LCAs, tore them down, had them powder coated, then new ball joints, poly bushings and poly ball joint dust covers, them I'll just install them as a unit. I think, overall, it was roughly $250 for eveything done.

[freakshow]

Hpefully you control arms will come off easy. My control arm bolt the vetical one, was seized in the sleeve and it only took me two days of pounding on it to get it out.

[steddy]

PB Blaster and 350 ft-lb impact gun w/regulated air flow.

[mister_grendel]

front suspension rebuild

Looks like the new shocks don't come with the seat for the spring coil. So I'm supposed to re-use the rustificated, rotted-looking thing that's already there. Seems kinda scary. There are replacement shock/strut units that come with the spring and everything... for about $350.00 each side :/