2008 Ford Mustang GT Front & Rear 14 Piece Steering & Suspension Kit DIY Solutions SUS09795

Once you have your vehicle safely raised and supported, you're going to remove all 5 lug nuts using a 21-millimeter. Carefully remove the wheel. Set it aside. One of the first things we have to do is break free this jam nut. Make sure you have a good grip. There we are. That broke free.

The next thing we're going to do is remove this cotter pin. Use your 18-millimeter, remove this nut. Let's take that nut, just put it back on here a couple threads. Next we're going to take a hammer and we're going to hit right here, and this is going to fall down, then that's going to prevent it from falling and potentially hurting us. There we are. It's not off of there. Okay.

When you try to turn the outer tie rod end, if it doesn't come unscrewed from the inner tie rod end, you're gonna need to hold this with some locking pliers and then try to turn this at the same time. If you're having a hard time turning it you could use a boxed end of a wrench. It's a good idea to count the turns as it comes off, 23 is what I've got for mine. Yours might differ, but it's probably approximately that.

Grab your outer tie rod end, and screw it in as many times as it took you to take off the original. Bring it up around, pull this up. Start on that neoprene locking nut. Let's bottom this out with our 18-millimeter. Let's torque this to 59 foot pounds. Make sure you snug up your jam nut. Perfect. Let's get the wheel back up on here.

Start on all your lug nuts, and then bottom them out. Now we're going to bring this down and torque it to manufacturer's best. Now with the vehicles wheel touching the ground but most of the weight of the vehicle off of it, we're going to torque these in a star pattern to 100 foot pounds. Torqued.

Once you have your vehicle safely raised and supported, you're gonna remove all five lug nuts using a 21-millimeter. Carefully remove the wheel, set it aside. Next, we're gonna take off the outer tie rod end nut. At this point, I'm just gonna put this nut on there just a couple threads, and then I'm gonna hit right here on the knuckle until this drops down. You wanna be careful not to damage your boot. If you follow your subframe along, and you see this nut right here, you're gonna remove that nut and this one right here. And those have bolts that come through from the top, so you just use your 18-millimeter wrench. Grab that bolt head. Should be up there. Take this out of there. Do the same to the other side. Grab both bolts out, grab your power steering rack, give it a wiggle.

Okay. So, now that it came out of its spot, you can see this bolt right here. We're gonna remove that bolt completely. We're gonna use our 18-millimeter swivel. Okay. Get this off there. Next, we're gonna move along to the rear side of the subframe here where the control arm connects in. You've got a 21-millimeter nut there and one right here. On top, it's a captured bolt so you don't have to worry too much about it spinning too much. It's got a little tab on there. Okay. I'm gonna leave that on just a little bit. That looks good. Here we go. Let's leave that right like that. Let's move along to over here. Use a 15-millimeter to hold this side of the bolt, then use an 18-millimeter on the other side to remove the nut. Let's get that nut on there just a little bit. Got a little punch and hammer. Okay. Use that. Let's continue driving it out.

The next thing we wanna do is drive this ball joint stud down. So, you can use an air chisel and go right on the stud like that. You could try to use a pickle fork and come in between the control arm and the knuckle. Whatever you need to do, definitely make sure you have some penetration on there though. Awesome. Let's go ahead and pop these bolts out of here. Be careful not to damage that power steering rack of course. It's pretty close. Let's get these bolts out of here. There's one, there's a second one.

All right. So, I'm just gonna pull this down, pull our knuckle out of the way, and pull out that control arm. Let's take some of this copper never-seize, go right inside that ball joint hole. Perfect. Let's start putting this lower control arm in, put the rear up and over there, and then we're gonna get this ball joint stud started. Let me see if I can get it somewhere to go in a little bit. There we go. Now, we're gonna try to get the rest of it lined up. Let's get this bolt in there.

Now, I'm gonna take my bolts for the rear, start those through. This one might not go as far down. Okay. Grab those nuts, start them on there. All right. I've got both of those started. If for some reason you're having a hard time, you can use a long pry bar, use a little bit of leverage to try to pry down on this. Let's snug these up. Start in this bolt. So, now we're gonna get the lower ball joint bolt in here. What you wanna do is pay attention to this hole. Try to look through and see if you can see the slot on the lower ball joint stud. Make sure that it lines up with the hole. If it doesn't, just use your small pry bar, a little bit of leverage, and then you should be able to move it around to get it lined up. Here we are. Give it a bonk. We've got our nut, start that on there. Awesome. Let's snug this. All right. So, all the mounting points for this are snugged up, let's go ahead and torque them to manufacturer's specifications. Now it's time to torque up these bolts. I'm gonna start with the ball joint to the knuckle bolt using my 15-millimeter to hold it so I can't spin. I'm gonna torque this to 76 foot-pounds. There we are. Now, we're gonna torque these nuts to 129 foot-pounds. Torqued. Now, we're gonna torque this forward bolt to129 foot-pounds as well. Torqued.

So, now it's time to get the rack back inside here. Just gonna push it. If it doesn't work, you can use something as simple as a rubber mallet. Give it a couple of light bonks. Obviously, you don't wanna damage it by using a metal hammer. Now, we're gonna put our bolts down and through and then we'll put the nuts on here. That's our bolt. Same to the other side. Get them started on there. Awesome. Now, it's time to bottom those out. Let's finish by torquing this down. We're gonna torque it to 85 foot-pounds. Torqued. Bring your knuckle around, pull this up. Start on that neoprene locking nut. Spot on this out with our 18-millimeter. Let's torque this to 59 foot-pounds. Make sure you snug up your jam nut. Perfect. Let's get the wheel back up on here. Start on all your lug nuts and then bottom them out. Now, we're gonna bring this down and torque it to manufacturer's best... Now with the vehicle's wheel touching the ground but most of the weight of the vehicle off of it, we're gonna torque these in the star pattern to 100 foot-pounds. Torqued.

Once you have your vehicle safely raised and supported, you're going to remove all five lug nuts using a 21-millimeter. Carefully remove the wheel. Set it aside. The next thing we're going to do is remove the sway bar link from right here. If you use an 18-millimeter wrench, you can come right inside the backside there and grab onto that. And then an 18-millimeter socket and remove these too. Now, it's time to take off the lower portion of the sway bar link. I'm just gonna use my 18-millimeter right there. And I'm gonna try to get my 18-millimeter socket with ratchet on the backside where the nut is. Okay.

Awesome. Just get the sway bar link in here. Put those nuts on there. Okay. Now, let's bottom these out. Use your 18-millimeter right there, 18-millimeter on this side as well, snug them up. Do the same to the lower. Let's torque this to 85 foot-pounds. Do the same to the lower one if possible. If it's not possible, just take your 18-millimeter wrench and give it a couple bonks with your rubber mallet so it's nice and snug. Let's get the wheel back up on here. Start on all your lug nuts and then bottom them out. Now, we're going to bring this down and torque it to manufacturer's specifications. Now, with the vehicle's wheel touching the ground but most of the weight of the vehicle off of it, we're going to torque these in a star pattern to 100 foot-pounds. Torqued.

Okay, friends. So what I did is I raised the vehicle. I put jack stands underneath the differential tube, and then I lowered the vehicle back down so it's pretty much taking the weight off of the shock. I have the wheel off because it makes it easier for me to work. You don't necessarily have to remove it. I'm gonna remove this bolt right here using a 15-millimeter. After that, I'm gonna go up top.

I'm just gonna take that bolt. Just put it in there just a teeny bit just to hold that shock so it doesn't fall. So next we're going to go inside the trunk. You can pull down this little felt panel here, then you see the upper portion of that shock. Remove this 15-millimeter as well.

Now I'm gonna grab the shock, and remove that bolt, and then carefully slide this out. There it is.

So once you cut the ribbon off of your shock, it's important to use this cap and then press straight down on this. What this is gonna do is it's gonna charge the shock. The gases inside need to mix. Every time you do this, this is going to come up a little faster, and it's gonna get a little bit harder to push down. You need to do this three to five times.

So the next thing we're gonna do is take this grommet right here. A little bit of lube. I'm just gonna go right along this like that. I'll show you why. We're gonna come under here and just help this up into the body of the vehicle just like that.

So next, you're gonna take your shock. I'm gonna put this little metal piece so it's facing up. You've got a cup there. Come in here just like this. If you wanted to, you could put a little bit of lube on that shock as well. I'm going to do it. All right. Grab that shock bolt, start putting it through.

You've got the nut. You've got the little flippy do here, that's gonna line up with right there. Start this in. Let's go up top. I've got these three pieces left so I'm gonna take this little rubber grommet right on top just like that. My cup is going to face down. Then, of course, you've got your locking nut with the neoprene. The neoprene faces up and away from the shock. Awesome.

So now I'm just gonna snug this up a little bit. All right. Now I'm gonna bottom-up the bottom side and then we'll torque these to manufacturer specifications. So to torque the upper mounting nut up there, you're going to need to hold this because it's going to want to spin. Just use some nice locking pliers. Carefully go up along the top here and lock them in. Now we're gonna torque this nut to 30 foot-pounds. There it is right there.

Now we're gonna bottom out this bolt. Torque this to 85 foot-pounds. Torqued. Let's get this back up in here. Lift up on this liner, just go all the way around. Something nice like that. Perfect. Now, with the wheels, make sure you torque your lug nuts in a crisscross manner to 100 foot-pounds. Torqued.

Once you have your vehicle safely raised and supported, you're going to remove all five lug nuts using a 21-millimeter. Carefully, remove the wheel, set it aside. One of the first things we have to do is break free this jam nut. Try to have a good grip. There we are, That broke free.

The next thing we're going to do is remove this cotter pin. Use your 18-millimeter, remove this nut. Let's take that nut, just put it back on here a couple threads. Next we're gonna take a hammer and we're gonna hit right here, and this is gonna fall down, the nut's gonna prevent it from falling and potentially hurting us. There we are. This nut off of there. Okay, when you try to turn the outer tie rod end, if it doesn't come unscrewed from the inner tie rod end, you're gonna need to hold this with some locking pliers and then try to turn this at the same time. If you're having a hard time turning it, you could use a boxed end of a wrench. It's a good idea to count the turns as it comes off. Twenty-three is what I've got for mine. Here's my differ, but it's probably approximately that. Now I'm gonna hold my pliers. Use a 22-millimeter socket on this right here. Try to get the jam nut out of the way.

Next we're going to get the bellows boot off of here, to do that there's going to be a clamp of some sort on this side, and a clamp of some sort on this side. Now we're going to give the bellows boot a tug, and try to get it right off this inner tie rod end. At this point, you want to check the bellows boot, make sure it's not ripped or torn in any way. Or of course, if it's overly stiff that might become an issue. If you happen to take a peek inside, and you see it's full of fluid, more than likely if it came from inside of your power steering rack right here, in which case you would need to replace the power steering rack.

Here we go. Gonna grab onto this inner tie rod end with my pliers, get to the right size, turn it counterclockwise. There we are, take this right off of here.

There it is. Time to get ready for an install. I put on a tiny bit of thread-locker. I used the lube that was included with the inner tie rod end. I put it all inside that ball and socket, and then just a little bit of lube down on these threads over here. You can also use some Never-Seez. It's bottomed out. Grab this with my pliers, make sure I have a nice good handle on it. Give it a little snug. About halfway up your inner tie rod end, you're gonna be able to feel this little groove. You want to make sure you put a little bit of that lube from your packet right there as well. When we put the bellows boot on, this is gonna slide all the way down, and then that's where this is gonna sit. You want to make sure that you have lube there, that's gonna help the alignment technician down the road.

Okay, and everything flowing, that feels good. Make sure you put a clamp here and a clamp right there.

Tiny bit of copper Never-Seez doesn't hurt. This jam nut, and put it down probably about halfway or a little bit further. Grab your outer tie rod end and screw it in as many times as it took you to take off the original. Bring your knuckle around, pull this up. Start on that neoprene locking nut. Let's bottom this out with our 18-millimeter. Let's torque this to 59-foot-pounds. Make sure you snug up your jam nut. Perfect. Let's get the wheel back up on here. Start on all your lug nuts and then bottom them out. Now we're gonna bring this down, and torque it to manufacturer's specifications.

Now with the vehicle's wheel touching the ground, but most of the weight of the vehicle off of it, we're gonna torque these in a star pattern to 100-foot-pounds. Torqued.