Replacing struts

[JustPray]

97 sedan with 3.0. Guide says to remove upper nut and bolt to take off lower control arm. Engine mount bracket (?) is blocking removal of bolt. Suggestions?

[shorod]

Welcome to the forum!

There should not be any engine mounts or brackets anywhere near the strut bolt for the lower control arm. I think what the book is trying to describe is to remove the three nuts holding the strut mount to the unibody under the hood, then remove the pinch bolt that attaches the strut to the steering knuckle. You'll also need to remove the stabilizer link. I suggest removing the stabilizer link first.

Are you replacing the struts because they are leaking oil, because the spring is broken, or because you're trying to locate a noise? If you're starting with the struts because of a bang/pop noise on bumps, you should consider instead starting with the stabilizer links and/or stabilizer bar bushings.

-Rod

[JustPray]

Thanks for the welcome Rod. I swear to you on the drivers side the front bolt holding the lower control arm to the unibody has some thick metal brace above it that prohibits sliding the bolt up. The good news is I found I did not need to remove the lower control arm to get the lower ball joint bolt out of the lower control arm. Read posts on this forum from 2006. Compressed the springs and used a Pittman Arm Puller. Worked great.

Replacing struts because the originals have 160K miles and I thought the quality of ride would improve (love the car, hope to run it to 300K!) Had to replace passenger side hub assembly and figured I would update some of the steering components including ball joints and sway bars.

Do you have any feedback on the product Freeze Off? I had a parts guy recommend it yesterday because both pinch bolts on the knuckle/strut were stuck something fierce. Both of those bolts had been rounded before I got to them. Anyway, I got the bolts off using Freeze Off and whaling away with a hand sledge. May of been coincidence, but nothing worked while the assembly was on the car.

[shorod]

I guess was I was trying to say in second sentence is that you should need to drop the lower control arm from the subframe, and therefore there should not be any bolts near the engine mounts that would need to come out. All you should have needed to do is remove the pinch bolt that holds the strut to the knuckle. You got it figured out though.

I've never tried Freeze Off. My dad swore by PB Blaster. I have a can of that and a can of Rust Eater. I typically go for the can of Rust Eater first, I've been very pleased with it. The PB Blaster seems to penetrate/wick better, so when it comes to getting brake rotors or drums off a car, I usually go for the PB.

-Rod