Front and rear shock replacement

[Sbaileyls1ta]

Going to attempt this tomorrow for the first time, not sure if I'll have enough time to finish, but I'm going to give it a shot. Just curious if there are quick tips anyone can think of.?I bought new mounts for the front, and remember being told to grease them a bit to help with future removal? (but with what I can't remember) Also rough time estimate? I can get around a car fairly well, but as I said first time doing this on this car. I'm going to need to rent a spring compressor I assume. And speaking of springs, I plan to cut the factory springs, from what I've read, cutting one full coil off is usually a pretty good start, and I'm sure it will be plenty for me. I just wanted to make sure there was nothing else to it. ( I know to cold cut ). For those that have koni yellows, what settings do you run? I have a good idea of what I'm going to do, but just curious. Basically just going off of the ls1howto lol so just trying to have all my bases covered.

[farmington]

rears are really straight forward. fronts aren't bad, assembling the spring/shock probably the hardest part. I found a good write up with pics on LS1tech a while back
http://www.ls1howto.com/index.php?article=6

[s.reef]

Not too bad if your using new parts it takes about an hour or so a side

[landstuhltaylor]

The grease is for the upper pocket on the front shock assembly. The nut that secures the mount to the shock is an area that traps water and rusts like crazy. Rear should maybe take an hour, fronts maybe up to 3 depending on how easily everything comes apart (time assuming you haven't done it before).

[alone_and_insane]

the worst part of doing the rear is tearing apart the whole interior to get at the top mounts.

[bri2203]

the worst part of doing the rear is tearing apart the whole interior to get at the top mounts.

You don't have to tear apart the interior to do the rear shocks. There is a cut away on the carpet

[Sbaileyls1ta]

Already have the carpet pulled back, I take apart interiors for a living so that part didn't bother me at all. I read about the cutting, but like I said I wasn't too worried about it.

[Sbaileyls1ta]

Rears were quick and easy, but didn't have time to get the fronts done, also had 3 oil changes, and a starter to put in a grand prix

[Sbaileyls1ta]

I did finally get this done, but it was a pain on the fronts. They came out pretty easy, but both my sway bar end links were rusted and snapped off, but at least that was cheap. The tops of the mounts were so rusted like everyone said I ended up having to cut the bolts off the top on both which sucked. But all in all it wasn't to bad. Rears took about 1.5-2 hours which included cutting the springs and the front took about 4 hours with all the rust. But of course I can't drive it now to test it out with all the salt they just dropped yesterday.

[landstuhltaylor]

Yep all that rust sucks. I slathered so much grease in there that you can see it coming out through the tops of the mounts even after it was installed on the car.

[DynoDave]

Glad you got 'em done.

But of course I can't drive it now to test it out with all the salt they just dropped yesterday.

If you don't drive it in the salt, how are the new parts going to get rusty like they are supposed to be?

[Sbaileyls1ta]

True that! I should probably go drive through some puddles to make sure everything is matching in there

[1BADAIR]

My car has only been in rain once and were rusty. Lol To many car washes

[farmington]

The salt works as a lock washer. Worked pretty darn good on those top shock bolts, didn't it?

[landstuhltaylor]

I didn't have the tools I needed when I did mine originally. I had to use a grinding wheel to cut the springs off and cut the shock shaft in order to grind a flat spot to stick a pair of vice grips on it to then get the upper mount apart. Unfortunately it was late on a Sunday so we weren't able to get the cutting wheels we needed.