dining room table leaf replacement
hey guys chrisfix you today i'm gonna show you how to replace the front shocks in this case it'll be on my 2001 mazda b3000 ford ranger replacing these shocks is gonna be similar on most makes and models these are shocks and not struts. there's no spring around them that's the difference. now this shock is bad it has 115,000 miles that have been very hard on it the front end bounces around a little bit more so in the rear end i'll be changing out the rear end shocks as well and there'll be another video the link to that video will be in the description below. there's gonna be a very simple job all you do is unbolt it from the top and then unbolt it from down here, and the bolts are located under the control arm you don't need many tools
and this is gonna be quick and simple so here are all the tools you're gonna need you're gonna need a bunch of different size wrenches you're gonna need different size sockets a ratchet torque wrench extensions, and then your shock. one of the first things we're gonna do is spray the nuts that we're going to be taking off with some penetrating fluid this will make everything a lot easier while we're trying to get it off we'll start at the top here what you're gonna need are two open-ended wrenches. i actually have a ratcheting one this is a 5/8 and that's gonna go on top. it's gonna make my life a lot easier and then i'm gonna use this 3/4 to hold the nut down here i switched over to a 15 millimeter it fit better than the 5/8
okay, well it looks like i snapped the top nut you can see that there's some bulging rust right here which prevented the nut from unscrewing which caused a lot of pressure to be put on this and it snapped it right off not a big deal because we're gonna be replacing this whole thing so so now with this nut undone or in my case the stud broken off. i'm gonna push this down, so it gives us clearance when we pull this out later now we're gonna go to the bottom down here and take off those two half-inch bolts so we're looking at the bottom of the control arm here going out towards the tire we want to take off each of these nuts and they're both 1/2 inch that's one
second nut off now we could pull the shock right out with the shock off the car you could actually see there is a dent in here and if you get a dent in your shock you definitely need to replace it you can see there's that little play in there that i'd barely have to move this like i'm not pressing hard at all those are only a few symptoms to tell if a shock is bad if you want to see more symptoms and see if your shock is bad there's a link to a video in the description below goes into detail now. let's get these new shocks installed before you install anything i always take brit clean and clean it up just so that the mounting points are clean with these mounting points clean we can install the shock now
with the washer at the bottom, and the bushing right on top on the top stud we're gonna slide the shock in from the bottom try not to scratch the shock bring the top in through the hole. it was in before and at the bottom get both of these bolts aligned in the hole so you can see here the new shock isn't exactly fitting on this control arm angle and the reason why is because the control arms just dangling here, so what i'm gonna do is i'm gonna jack the control arm up so that this angle isn't as steep and i could get these bolts in properly since i'm jacking up the car i want to make sure that this stud is in the hole here so when it goes up it goes into the hole so now you can see there's less of an angle in the control arm these bolts went through further so now i could bolt them
down in addition this seated right on the spot that it needs to go the first thing we'll do is get our two nuts hand tighten them in as you tighten these down you might need to hold the other side with a wrench to prevent the bolt from spinning tighten this side just a little bit go to the other side as you snug these two down just go back and forth between the two nuts so they snug down evenly with these two bolts tightened down will torque them for my truck these two bolts get torqued down to 15 to 21 foot-pounds good good with these two torqued down now we'll go to the top of the shot, and we'll tighten that nut down put the bushing and washer on
and tighten that nut on there this is 9/16 make sure when you're installing these that the bushings line up right in the middle you don't want to be off centered and you're gonna torque this down so the bushings compress to the same diameter as this outer washer here so once. it's compressed that much you're done tightening you can see the bushing is as wide as that washer on the bottom and on the top once you get it tighten down that much you're good to go and that's how you change a front shock very simple easy to do save you a lot of money if this video is helpful give it a thumbs up also consider subscribing i publish how-to videos weekly
and i answer all the questions and comments you guys leave below on the screen will be different videos you could click on the video on the screen that'll get you there or you can find the link to those videos in the description below you could also find the links to the chrisfix facebook and twitter pages and description below if you use facebook or twitter go check it out and always remember when you're replacing one shock replace the other side as well, so if i'm doing front shocks i'm doing both front shocks. not just one always replacing pairs