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I am changing the shocks and springs on my 2000 Ford Mondeo ST200 (Contour SVT in the US). The front went pretty well, only had a little struggle with a couple of rusty bolts.
The rear went well until i got to the last stage, wich is to take off the top mounts. They are fastened with two 10mm bolts, that are bolted on from the underside, and the ends are visible in the shock tower in the boot. I got one off. The second ones hat came off, and the last two are stuck like mad. I have drowned them in a whole can of penetrating oil and CRC Rost flash wich freezes the bolts.
I also made a hack in one of the bolts from the upper side so a big flat headed screwdriver fit on it. No result, the other side of the bolt just broke off. I also tried to jam two bolts together and force it open, but they dont fit. Working space is really tight also.I have now been stuck at this stage for five days, and im really annoyed. Any ideas would be really appreciated.
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Ugh….
That’s in a bad spot.
Ok. Not going to like this, but here goes:
6pt socket and a breaker bar. Or if you have it? Impact gun. (I’ve got an electric one that is the best investment I’ve ever made)
You’re going to wind up snapping it off. I really do not see it playing nice. I’d snap it off, drill it out, and install a new nut/bolt. Probably a nut with “nyloc” to make sure it does not work itself free.
If you have use of an impact gun? That going Loosen/tighten….every few seconds might break it loose. By hand? With the use of a breaker bar, that will snap the head off. If the head snaps off? I’d grab the other end with a quality stud extractor and see if you can work it out backwards.
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They are really in a bad spot. I was thinking about using Eric’s tip as in the video above, but the turrets for the shocks are so high and cramped that you really can’t work up there.
My dad came up with this tip, wich i am now in process of trying:
I bought a tube of Loctite power epoxy and glued two sockets on to the heads of the bolts. It needs to set for 24 hours, really nasty and powerful stuff. Tomorrow i’ll try to rock them loose.
I’ll report how it goes tomorrow, fingers crossed. Otherwise it’s out with the drill.The epoxy didn’t stick. I had to get the drill out, and got one out. They are apparently made out of the hardest substance known to man, i went through a million drill bits on just the one bolt. Its also incredibly hard to drill in the suspension tower, no space and you really can’t see what you are doing.
The struggle continues tomorrow… Hopefully i’ll get the other two out with the drill, my car has been off the road for two weeks now, and i am getting fed up. 😆
Get some Kobalt drill bits. They pretty much will slice through even the hardest metal without to much headache.
Had the same issue with the rear suspension of a 2000 Tiburon. Broke one of the cross member bolts. Had to drill it out and it kept dulling the usual bits. Even titaneum (can’t spell it, but you get the idea) didn’t last more then a few moments. Kobalt? Took two of them, but it walked through the oversized bolt like it was butter.
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If the air hammer doesn’t work then you might need to drill as you already are. Sucks really. You might also consider cutting them off if possible. I know you’re literally in a tight spot though.
Good luck and keep us posted on your progress.
I finally got them out. We have a very short summer here in Finland, feels like i’ve spent half of it under the car now. 😆
I made new threads to the towers and put new bolts in, everything went fine.
But i now possibly have another issue: the rear springs upper end did set correctly into it’s little housing on the top mount, but the lower end of the spring is not quite where it should be.
A bit like that, but not quite as much. The springs and shocks are Spax adjustable, and specifically made for this car model, so by logic the springs should fit just fine.
Will the bottom end set by itself when i lower the car on the ground, or is there something wrong?This is what the internet is for, the Haynes manual don’t ever say anything about stuff like this.
“Things should fit fine” and aftermarket parts don’t often go together in my experience. You may be able to compress the spring in the car and reposition it. Just be careful.
I did the idiotic thing and jerked the spring with my hands. A loud BANG resulted and the spring jumped into its correct position. I didn’t even lose any fingers, yay.
The trip to the auto shop to get an aligment was absolute torture though, since three wheels were pointing in different directions. And when i got to the shop, the mechanic told me that the bolts that adjust rear aligment are useless because lack of maintenance. I have to replace them, and already ordered new ones from the official Ford dealer over here, and bought new rear wishbones. The guy at the shop told me that the bolts are an absolute nightmare to get out, so watch this space… :whistle:
A bit annoying that i can’t test my new suspension out, the car has all four wheels on for the first time in three weeks now, and is just sitting there asking for a good blast down a Finnish country road.
Yea, I’m waiting for parts too. Sucks. That said, I’m glad you’re OK and that you didn’t loose any fingers ‘resetting’ your spring. Keep us posted on how the drive goes after you get the alignment sorted.
I will do that. The parts are being shipped here from Ford of Sweden. This is not the first time, the swedish Ford dealers seem to have all parts in stock, and our Finnish ones can only sell very basic parts straight off the shelf.
Here is a picture of my car, i guess most people on this forum are from the US, so you’ll probably never seen one of these:
It’s a good looking runner!!!
And it’s not just Finnish going to Sweden for parts. We have that issue here in the states A LOT! I’ve had to order in parts and they have to be shipped in either from Canada, or California…Mexico.. Heck, even China at one time.
I think we’ve outsourced about 98% of the country at this point.
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