96 Wagon Rides Bad!

I have recently installed 4 new struts for my 96 escort wagon.
The ride seem so much more worse then i ever could have imagined.
I replaced old bad struts with new gasmatic monroe's....each spring is new and also the other components.....bearing plate,upper spring seat ect.
I drive this car for a rural newspaper route in Central Pennsylvania.
sometime when i hit a bump on those country roads it sounds like the strut bottoms out.
also i have not goten it aligned yet due to the fact that i was trying to figure out on my own,what the prblem was.
everything on the strut is brand new.
I have taken them off and checked the piston but that seems ok.....not very easy to puch down with arm.
one thing i am curious about is why it seems so difficult to release spring compessor and keep top spring seat in line with coil spring without the bottom of the spring not fitting correctly into the lower end of the new strut....could the upper spring seat be wrong?
lol
another thing is after i did this it seems to sway on open roads and when i go over a bump on driver side and not on passenger side the wheel acts like the ball joints are not working at all but i replaced them before i did struts.....also did the outter tie rod ends.
PLease help!

I suspect the reassembly of the struts is incorrect. You mention you have new springs. Did you get the whole assembly ready to go or did you replace the springs yourself. If that is the case I suspect the top nut on the piston rod is not torqued down properly and/or the springs arent't seated properly. Also, I suspect you put the thrust bearing on the top of the strut on the wrong side. You need to put the top swivel plate in a vise and tighten the piston rod nut to 80 lbs.ft. There is a direction indicator on top of the swivel plate. It needs to go towards the center of the vehicle. If it is in any other position the camber and caster will be off and will make the car wander like you say. Without looking at the strut assembly it is impossible to pinpoint what is wrong. Take them off again and check the top swivel plate to make sure it is rotating freely.

The top of the strut is assembled in this order.

1.Piston rod nut.
2.Mounting block (swivel plate)
3.Thrust bearing
4.Upper spring seat
5.Rubber spring seat
6.Rubber bound stopper.

You mention why it is so hard to keep the spring seats aligned. The bottom seat is fixed. The top seat moves freely to align spring seat. If the top spring seat can't be turned to align the spring you have it assembled incorrectly.

You need to take it and get the front end aligned since you replaced many front end parts. Tell the mechanic your concerns before he lines it up.

I agree with Davescort97. However I am also curious as to how many miles are on the car.

I assembled the complete strut myself. all the parts you mentioned are new. If you want,I can take a picture of it and post it somewhere you can view. I did not torgue the piston rod nut on a vise what i did was torque it after i had the four bearing plates torqued down. When you say bearing on wrong side i'm not sure what you mean....is it passenger and driver side? because nothing on the strut or any other parts indicated that.
I left the bellows off and did not purchase these as mechanic friends of mine told me those are only for keeping dirt out of the piston itself. I put the indicator toward the center facing out in line with the holes the the knuckle bolts onto. When i bought this car the dealer said 54K miles but upon looking at various front end parts and undercarraige this thing looks like more then 200K...i don't know if they swapped dash board....it was a reconstructed title.

What I meant by wrong side was that I thought perhaps you had put the thrust bearing on top of the swivel plate instead of below it. I'm at a loss to say what is wrong. It sounds like you put it all together right. Take it to get aligned and tell the mechanic what you told us. Maybe he can figure it out. You know, there's always the possibility you were sold the wrong strut for the application. Maybe the piston and rod is too long and that is why it is bottoming out. Hard to say.

It could still be that the spring isn't seated right.
You can inspect the spring for any signs that it is rubbing against something... it should stand out.

http://i687.photobucket.com/albums/vv231/badpoor71/just%20some%20car%20stuff/DSCN2866.jpgHere are some pictures i took today after I intalled two new sway link kits.

I also nee to replace the Rack & Pinion anyone got some tips?
I looked at the repair tutorial on AZ website but it seems limited and there are a few things I can't find.
First part of the repair guide tells me to unbolt tube boots from the passenger side compartment...I don't see any bolts on that side related to were the rack & pinion is located.

You have done a lot of good work! If you replaced the upper spring seats ... did you compare shape and size of old to new? How about the end shapes of the springs?

On one strut top (the LH side??), there looks like one stud is short ... did you shorten it?

I would not be rushing to any alignment shop until this problem is figured out ....

.... also looking at that top photo, that spring needs to be rotated about a half turn to be seated properly in/on the strut-shock formed sheet metal "shelf". How did that happen?? That ain't right! I suspect that would put a real bind on the strut-rod.

Of course, I could be looking at the photo wrongly ... and am all wet!

I see the same thing.. looks like it needs a half turn to the right. The bottom end of the coil should settle into the indentation formed in the seat.

I see it too. It looks like the base of the spring is pointed in the wrong direction to seat. It definately is not right.

That is not the end of the spring. It is that rubber bushing/I don't really know, that comes with the new springs. The part of the spring you are referring to is located and properly seated as you mentioned.

Actually after the 6th time I took those struts apart and back together that bolt snapped while installing the top of the strut. Is this something I need to be worried about?

OK, it does look like the rubber pad now that you mention it.

I would not worry about the broken bolt ... just so you understand what happened.

Could be you now have a much stiffer set-up than you are accostomed to .... There may be nothing really "wrong".

So...heres the final word on My wagon rides bad story.
I was checking things out the other day and shaking wheels up,down and side to side. the rear passenger side seemed to be lose. I though it was deffinitly a bad wheel bearing hub but that was not the case.
I put the tire back on and lowered it and I could push in on the top of the wheel where I could hear a noise that sounded like a bad bearing lol....so I got a friend over and he puched in on the wheel at the top while I looked with a light at all of the supension parts.
Nothing looked like it moved.
I noticed when I put my hand under the tire I could push up and the strut seemed like it was moving very easily. then I looked again while he moved the top of the tire in and low and behold the strut was moving forward and backward.
So i call the local dealer service department and tell them I have a technical question about this hole ordeal ive been going through for the past 2 1/2- 3 months. he asked where i got the struts and what kind they where and said they stopped getting them from AZ or AAP because the MONROE GAS MATIC strut was having blown seal issues.
this has been my problem and I kept thinking i was installing these componants wrong being that I am somewhat novice with this particular vehicle.
Anyone got any ideas on what struts I should upgrade to?

Make sure that the correct upper bearing blocks are in place. For the year models that I've worked on ... the wagons and sedans had different shaped components (IIRC).

.............. i have not goten it aligned yet ............

That could be the issue. Awhile back I had someone replace my tie-rod ends and got the replacements on there pretty off. Made the ride seem like I had bad suspension. Got it realigned the next morning, all was normal again.

If those are the regular blue Monroes, they should be just fine. I've got them in my car, and they are warrantied for life too. Just take it back where you bought it from.

Adjustment of camber, caster and toe helps place the tires SQUARELY on the pavement. Getting an alignment will help ensure that shock from the road is properly transferred to your suspension as opposed to your joints and mounts. I would imagine that you can probably do damage by driving it normally while severly out of alignment.

The particular shop that I had mine done at awhile ago, would perform another aligment at no charge, for ANY reason within the next 30 days. This meant that I could perform any additional maintenance needed and simply go back. Since Zyzzx2 mentioned it, I think that was a Monroe service center.