[Steering & Suspension] Shocking !

[Ikanpaul]

Hi all,at last started rebuilding front end on my berlingo, Ive been so busy working its behind schedule but now its light until 8pm I thought why not start. What to expect list follows, 10am its Sunday after-all , slacken wheel bolts,raise van,remove calliper and hang out of way,remove calliper bracket should be easy as I replaced discs recently,WRONG I had a garage replace wheel bearing a few weeks back and they must have gone crazy with the air wrench! , Two Facom t55 bits shattered and a cheap draper bit now resembles a screw extractor! next I try a little gas and impact driver no joy,move to massive stilsons nice sharp jaws still no joy , next try chisel to knock them around no luck just cut a bit off the head, drastic measure now drill and screw extractor BANG snap OUCH!, also I did spray the bolts by the way with search penetrating spray, Final option is to cut calliper into four pieces ,then cut heads off bolts knock bits of calliper bracket off un-threaded ends of bolts,this leaves me with about 15mm of bolt protruding ,mole grips this time easy as no stress on bolts now, THANKS A LOT FOR BEING AN APE WITH YOUR AIR TOOL AS IT SAVED YOU FIVE MINUTES ! MAYBE YOU JUST LIKE THE NOISE AS IT MAKES YOU FEEL PROFESSIONAL , RANT OVER. Next remove the two little disc retainer bolts disc off, lower ball joint off,strut pinch bolt out,rear of wishbone two bolts out,drop-link off,front bolt into subframe bolt Two turns and PING! the nut retainer piece of tin snaps allowing the nut to move in harmony with my 18mm socket and laugh at me peeking through its little hole,easy I think I find a small steel wedge and knock it in against a flat, a few turns later and things start getting tight so more lube and wind it back and forth a bit,try again same problem wedge fails to control the nasty nut, I have a closer look and see at least 20mm of thread behind the nut WHY? so much excess metal Citroen. The hole where the nut is placed is to small to fit a 18mm spanner in ,so small chisel time very easy to cut small piece above hole,now open ended spanner fits, but it still took half hour or so as had to wedge behind face of spanner to stop it sliding off as the excess 20mm or so cant be cleaned up as there is no access ,at last bolt and nut is out , bolt looks ok but nut is no longer laughing at me it looks very sad, never mind its just a nut , is it hell its a Citroen special fine thread M12 X 1.25 PITCH if you are interested, this gets me thinking about the calliper carrier bolts and yes another weird thread M12 X 1.50 PITCH aha I do have these in high tensile form 10.8 I think.
Now I remove the brake hose clip on strut and the ridiculous spring catcher cup which may or may not save you as when a coil spring breaks (which it will at some point it it has pits/rust) as it drops down and swiftly cuts your tyre off the rim at whatever speed you happen to be travelling at said time .
Next slacken the top strut mount bearing bolts, compress spring , knock hub off strut support on stand, remove entire strut remove damper rod nut,de-compress coil , tea break not the first so you know.
Knock out top mount bearing clean up top spring cap fit new bearing and isolating platform , fit new coil spring Eibach lowered 25mm which looks very short almost half the length of of the original time bomb to new strut and hey presto I have one fully built strut ready to fit.
A quick peek under the turret reveals a little peeling of underseal  at top so I clean/scrape and treat with some waxy-oily stuff which needs 24hours to dry thank fxxxxxxxxxxxk as its now 7.45pm tea-time , clear up tools go indoors write this,I took pictures during this torture and will post them when get time and work out how to post them,Beer time bye for now.

[Johny555]

You should have stayed in bed,lol ,

[ffrenchie]

Stop being a drama queen and get on with it man When I did the brakes on ours last year the caliper carriers had never been removed. You have to knock the torx bit into them with the hammer to make sure it bites or they are guaranteed to round the shallow heads out. The last one was so tight I was using an extending breaker bar and still made my elbow crack undoing it.

[polar]

Put the tools down and step away from the vehicle.