Honda Car Forum

Before doing anything, check the front and rear suspension parts on both
sides and if they are really dirty, take the car to a car wash. If the cv
boots have split or busted open, there will be heavy grease on everything.
Use some good grease remover and clean both sides up really good.

In rebuilding the suspension on a 90-93 accord, it's best to do the lower
ball joints first. This is because so many other components hang on the
steering knuckle. Use an air wrench to take off the drive axle nut. It
takes a 36mm socket, and it's put on with many pounds of torque, so you're
going to need some umph to get it off. Some of the removal specifics have
been omitted here. After removing the strut, use a puller and pop the
steering tie rod end and the upper control arm end. Don't unbolt them
completely yet, just loosen enough to pop them loose. Remove the brake
stuff and hang the caliper. Now pop the lower ball joint and remove the
nuts on the steering tie rod end and the upper control arm and the lower
ball joint.

The steering tie rod ends... the time to loosen the outer (and probably the
inner) tie rod ends is when the ball joints are loosened and not yet
removed. The steering knuckle holds the outer tie rod end and limits its
movement, while the steering box holds the inner tie rod end and likewise
limits its movement. The outer tie rod end is held with a 17mm locknut on
the threaded shaft of the inner tie rod end. To remove the outer tie rod
end, loosen the locknut while holding the inner tie rod shaft with an
opposing wrench. Mark the tight position of the locknut with fingernail
polish or some such. Or you can count the number of turns it takes to
remove the outer tie rod end. Regardless, the car will have to go to the
alignment shop when repairs are completed.

The stabilizer link bolts are simply an unbolt, remove and replace operation
with no torque applied; simply tighten until snug. Two wrenches are
required to unbolt the original parts.

The upper control arms... the driver's side is a snap. Both upper bolts are
easy to reach and the pivot arms can be torqued in the upright position
before the arm is put in place. On the passenger side, the fuse box sits
over the rear upper control arm nut. Remove the three accessible 10mm bolts
and you can then gently lift the fuse box enough to get a 17mm box end
wrench over the nut. Replacement is just the reverse.

Struts... on disassembly of the struts you will most likely find that the
stopper, as Honda calls it, will have to be replaced. This is a poly shock
bumper that sits within the dust cover. This can be a dealer part, and you
can also find it at Advance Auto and on the internet. An internet search
will bring you to what is called a bellows. This is the replacement part.
Advance Auto calls it a control arm bumper. The front and rear are
different. The end of the strut takes a 5mm Allen wrench and the retaining
bolt is a 17mm.

Get down and dirty and take the weather boot or shield off the bottom of the
front of the car so that the radius rod fronts can be checked. The shield
is held in place with about six bolts. When I was removing the passenger
side of the shield, the radius rod nut, retaining washer and bumper fell out
in my face. Was that where the thumping noise was coming from? Duh. The
radius rod front consists of a 17mm nut, an outer retaining washer, a
sleeve, two rubber bumpers, an inner retaining washer and the threaded end
of the rod. The nut should be torqued to 42 ft. pounds.

The inner tie rod ends... these are covered by rubber boots. The passenger
side is accessible, but the driver side requires the steering box cover to
be removed. It has three 10mm bolts holding it in place. Take the two out
and loosen the third and the cover can be swung out of the way without
falling in your face. The Haynes manual says to snip the retaining clamps
off the boots and don't reuse them. The outer ends of the boots are wound
with wire, while the inner ends have clamps. I used needlenose pliers to
get the wire off and a small chisel opened the clamps. Wire ties can be
used as replacement clamps, or you can get replacement boots with clamps.
There is also a tiny hose coming into each of the boots that has a pressure
clamp on it. Just compress the clamp and slide it back, then slip the hose
off the boot. The boots can then be slid forward to reveal the inner tie
rod ends. I have not removed these as yet, but it appears that the easiest
way to do it is to have both inner and outer tie rods in place and
restrained by the steering knuckle/steering box so that the tie rods can be
loosened easily.

Back to the project...the steering knuckle can now be lifted up and out.
Expect heavy since it still has the hub/rotor bolted tot it. The hub and
backing plate have to be removed from the steering knuckle before the ball
joint can be removed. You use an E14 internal star socket for that with an
air wrench. Then flip the knuckle over, swap the E14 for a 14mm regular
socket and remove the bolts on the front of the hub.

Now take a tire tool or something similar and go down between the backing
plate and the hub/rotor and pry them apart. Did you spray everything down
with brake part cleaner to keep the brake dust to a minimum? Good. The
backing plate is attached to the knuckle with three Phillip's head screws
and they are tight. Presoak
them with WD40 or similar and use the biggest Phillip's screwdriver you
have. Once that's done, you can get at the ball joint pretty easily. Auto
Zone rents a press for removing/installing ball joints, and we found that it
works better installing them than removing them on this particular model
car. We used a two-arm puller to get the joint out of the knuckle.

With the old joint out, put the new one in using the press. Then it's just
a matter of putting it all back together.

prvtlewis

















Prvtlewis















You don't have to remove the brake rotor (the bolts on the backing plate of
ours have special star heads, and we don't have a socket that fits), and be
ready for some heavy lifting on the steering knuckle. It comes out easy
now. And you can take the works to a parts house or machine shop for
pressing out of the old and in with the new. Or you can try pounding the
old lower ball joint out. Be sure you remove the lock ring first. We tried
to knock the driver's side out, and found that we couldn't get it all the
way out because the little guy in Japan who pressed in the hub bearing race
when the car was built didn't press it in quite far enough. It lacks maybe
a 16th of an inch being in far enough for the old ball joint to clear coming
out.

Here's a rough list of some of the tools you will need to do this:

10, 12, 14, 17, 19, and 36mm wrenches and sockets, ratchets and pull handles
for 3/8 and 1/2 drives, floor jack, bottle jack, two jack stands, rubber
mallet, ball peen hammer, needle nose and regular pliers, spray lubricant,
brake cleaning spray, lug wrench, flat blade screwdriver or two, two-arm
puller, air wrench and compressor for the axle nut, factory service manual
or substitute, couple of 10" adjustable wrenches, torque wrench, a couple of
punches, lots of something cool to drink, a female companion to read the
manual for you so you don't have to get it greasy while working and to keep
you on track, and probably something else that I just can't think of right
off.

While you've got the brake stuff off, check the pads and make sure they
don't need to be replaced or the rotors turned because this is a golden
opportunity to do that.

Once you get the lower ball joints out and back in, now is the time to
replace all the other stuff with new, the upper control arm, the steering
tie rod end, the strut, the radius rod end, the stabilizer bar end and to
reinstall all the brake stuff.

Whew, what a job!!