After its being used, heavily for the last half a year, the Scion is a little worse for wear when it comes to the suspension. When you put two year's worth of miles on a car in 6 months, shit's gonna be worn out. Anyway, the car's been doubling as a low rider for a while and driving had to be a little careful on certain roads due to the car's desire to bottom out. The suspension is in need of an overhaul. The first place I'm starting is with the struts.
I managed to order a set of struts online for $200. Since we are talking about replacing struts, I had to pick a time where I would have several uninterrupted hours to work on this thing since there's no telling what I might encounter, especially with the rear struts. I figured the fronts would be relatively easy. I was correct, the fronts were easy. three nuts on top and two large bolts at the bottom plus a bolt for the brake line/speed sensor wire and the sway bar link and the strut was out, super easy. I was able to get the front struts in and out pretty fast. The old struts were worn out, obviously since the front of the car was riding low to begin with and the shock boots were worn out and had grease all over the place. After putting the new struts on and lowering the car to the ground, the ride height was vastly improved from the way it was. The top of the wheels almost touch the bottom of the fender, now, there's a good inch or two gap between the wheel and fender. Now on to the back. Oh yeah, the back. After pulling the wheel off of the left side I saw that I was in for a treat. The bottom of the strut was held with one large bolt and nothing else was hooked up to the unit but the top, it was held with three studs/nuts that were hidden under some interior paneling. For the helluva it I pulled up a YouTube video on the rear strut removal to confirm what I figured. That was the fact that I would have to remove the "trunk" interior paneling, including the sides, in order to access the trio of nuts for each strut. Now while this appeared to be problematic, it ended up actually being pretty easy. A couple of retaining brackets and some snap clips and removing the cubby inserts and spare tire and I had the side panels and "floor" from the car to open up the area so I can get to the hardware. After pulling the nuts loose, it was time for the bottom bolt on the each strut. This turned out to be very troublesome as these bolts were probably never removed in the life of the car. I ended up having to put a cheater pipe on a breaker bar with a socket to break the nut enough to be able to remove the hardware. THEN, even after getting the bottom bolt off, I ended up having to use the cheater pipe to pry the lower suspension down enough to clear up some space to be able to remove the strut. I even had to twist the thing to get the studs and bottom mount in a position to be able to work it free from its prison. Of course I had to do the same thing in reverse to get the new units in. With the new struts in I was able to drop the car down, with the same results as the front, nice ride height, sturdy suspension. I quickly reassembled the rear interior and had everything back in order. To clean things up I changed the oil so now the car's all ready to rock and roll. I was going to change the brake pads but they turned out to be good still, apparently cheap brakes have a habit of making noise more than usual. At least now the car is heading on the right track. The next thing to be replaced will be the lower control arms and sway bar links.
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