Front shock change

[vilant]

Finished the rest of making my car 100% by replacing my front shocks. And I did it the right way, which means it got done quickly, lol. Just jacked up one side of the car at a time. After was tire is removed I placed a second jack under the control arm to support it. Just don't put it under the grease fitting, and make sure you have access to the nuts underneath, they need to come out.

Removed the actuator retaining clip, and gently pulled, up to remove the shock actuator and put it aside.

Removed the 17mm mounting nut, cup assembly, upper insulator retainer, and upper insulator. Then removed the 2 lower mounting nuts and bolts, they're 13mm. It says to compress the shock to get it out, but there was no compressing mine, it was shot. Took off the lower insulator off the and removed the metal bushing that was stuck inside it (the new shocks come w/ a new one). Worked backwards w/ the steps and tightened all bolts to 19 ft/lbs per FSM. Actually had to jack the control arm alot more to actually compress the new shock (that's how bad the old ones were). Make sure the adjustment screw is 5mm above the cup (I didn't really measure this, looked the same distance as the old). And you need to gently work the shock actuator back onto the cup assembly. The gear inside the actuator is plastic and breaks easily. Here's the old and new side by side,

and here's the new shock in place.

What a huge difference in the ride, I couldn't believe the difference the new front shocks had (I replaced the rears a few months earlier). And the Selective Ride Control light is finally out. My car finally has no indicator lights lit, other than Full Engine Power, lol. Took it out for spin and it was awesome. I love my car.
P.S. Bilstein also recommends retightening bolts after 50km.

[ghlkal]

Nice work, thanks for the images.

Dang, your suspension looks clean enough to eat off of!


What was your source and price for the Bilsteins?

[vilant]

Originally Posted by ghlkal

Nice work, thanks for the images.

Dang, your suspension looks clean enough to eat off of!


What was your source and price for the Bilsteins?

Thanks fellas. Lol, I cleaned everything I could get my hands on when I had the car up on jacks a few months when my injectors went. I bought them from the shock warehouse online. Each set, rear and front, was a little over $400/set. You can save a few bucks if you buy all 4 at once, but I didn't have the funds to do that originally. Shipping is free also.

[scottfab]

You want to be EXTREMELY careful putting the actuator back on.
Make sure the gear teeth fully engage.
This is a source of many ground up teeth on the female gear in the actuator.

Another solution for actuator problems is to just rip out the FX3 system when it fails but I like to keep things working keep to the FSM as best I can. Ripping things out is not the first thing that comes to mind when it's time to fix something on the car.

[jimmy b.]

Thanks for the write up Joe, as I will be changing my front shocks in a couple of months. I did the rears last spring because of leaks. I bought them from e shocks.com, good prices, good service, and came when they said they would. I will buy the fronts from them too.

again good write up.

[vilant]

Thanks,my pleasure. I try to be helpful, even if it is minimal at best.

[Dynomite]

Thanks for the write up Vilant

I have an acuator that went South (electrical malfunction in actuator) and it appears that a "good" actuator rotates both ways when you turn the key on searching or self aligning?? Then settles in position. What is it doing exactly?

When you place the actuator back on top of the shock, how do you set the gear on top of the shock?

That gear rotates maybe 160 degs total and can be rotated with your fingers.

So which way should that gear be facing when you set the actuator on top?
Should the control on the console be set to one position or other?

[vilant]

Originally Posted by Dynomite

Thanks for the write up Vilant

I have an acuator that went South (electrical malfunction in actuator) and it appears that a "good" actuator rotates both ways when you turn the key on searching or self aligning?? Then settles in position. What is it doing exactly?

When you place the actuator back on top of the shock, how do you set the gear on top of the shock?

That gear rotates maybe 160 degs total and can be rotated with your fingers.

So which way should that gear be facing when you set the actuator on top?
Should the control on the console be set to one position or other?

When the SRC light was on, and I knew there was a problem with the right front shock, someone told me to first pull the actuator off and check to see if any of the plastic teeth inside the actuator were broken, then second, turn the ignition to "ON" and see if the gear spins (which I had to run around the car to get to the other side, lol). If no broken teeth and gear spun the actuator was OK and the shock was the problem. I'd be lying if I said I knew exactly what it's doing, but my educated guess is it will spin the gear all the way in one direction, then return to whatever the selected setting is. I spun the gear on my shock too. Don't think it matters where it is, but if your unsure, spin it to the middle position and let the actuator do the rest. I don't think it matters what setting it's on either. At least I never took mine off of ""Tour".

[Dynomite]

Originally Posted by vilant

When the SRC light was on, and I knew there was a problem with the right front shock, someone told me to first pull the actuator off and check to see if any of the plastic teeth inside the actuator were broken, then second, turn the ignition to "ON" and see if the gear spins (which I had to run around the car to get to the other side, lol). If no broken teeth and gear spun the actuator was OK and the shock was the problem. I'd be lying if I said I knew exactly what it's doing, but my educated guess is it will spin the gear all the way in one direction, then return to whatever the selected setting is. I spun the gear on my shock too. Don't think it matters where it is, but if your unsure, spin it to the middle position and let the actuator do the rest. I don't think it matters what setting it's on either. At least I never took mine off of ""Tour".

When you say spins you mean spins about 80 degs back and forth? that is what my actuator does when I turn the key on and then it stops spinning. So it spins back and forth only a couple times then stops like it found itself

After I determined that the passenger side actuator was not functional I switched drivers side actuator to passenger side. I could not get around the Z fast enough to the passenger side once I turned the key on to observe the actuator movement since it appeared to stop turning before I got there

Priss turned the key on and I observed the passenger side after I switched actuators from drivers side to passenger side. The actuator that was working seemed to rotate one way and then the other before stopping just like you suggest. Priss tried different settings including "Tour" and I think the same on all settings it appears but I am not sure what exactly I seen in terms of the rotation stopping points except one actuator was working and the other was not on the same circuit

Yes....I think when I took the drivers side actuator off the gear appeared to be centered and could be rotated about 80 deg both clockwise and counterclockwise. There must be valve ports in the shock that the gearing lines up depending on your console selection on "ride".

Thanks for the feedback. I have an actuator coming from Ebay and I will take some photos for this post in your thread when I put it back together

[Franke]

Vilant, I have a service bulletin on the front suspension nut torque specs that indicate a change from 19 ft lbs to 31 ft lbs for the upper front shock retaining nut. Bulletin number 90-297-3C. Corp bulletin number 013301 July of 1990.