90 Accord Front Suspension Rebuild

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. 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. Use an air wrench to take off the drive axle nut. It
takes a 36mm socket, and it's put on with 78 ft pounds of torque, so you're
going to need some umph to get it off. Some of the detail removal is
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.
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!!

dw