Hawkze_2.3

Well, my Prelude has 200,000 miles on it as I am sure most of them are getting close to at this point. It had a pretty nasty wobble in the front wheel, so I got in there to check it out. Bad inner tie rod, OK. Oh wait, what's that? Bad lower ball joint...OK. What's THAT? Bad Axle......OK. Looks like those bearings have seen better days......and so on

So at the time of this writing I am almost 99% done with this whole thing, so this will hopefully be a helpful guide to doing all this stuff yourself with an after-the-fact point of view.

I REALLY wanted to DIY this all in the garage, but the reality is that it just isn't possible unless you have a large press and good assortment of round metal scrap.

What the front suspension consists of (replaceable parts):

-wheel bearings
-lower ball joints
-upper ball joints (didn't do these)
-upper arm-frame bushings (didn't do these)
-inner tie rod ends
-outer tie rod ends (already had installed new ones recently)
-axles
-inner LCA bushings
-shock LCA bushings
-radius rods and bushings
-front cross-member (can be swapped for aftermarket traction bar setup)
-obviously the shocks and springs, but those are an easy bolt on affair and a wide variety of parts are readily available.
-sway bar bushings and mounts (didn't do these...yet)

Sourcing parts:

You want the best quality (right?) and the best prices, of course. Honda OEM parts are always a safe bet, but can be expensive. I did a lot of shipping around, and the only good deal from Honda was the LCA bushings and bolts. Moog makes excellent suspension parts, and they have a full line available for Preludes

I ended up going with
-Moog inner tie rod ends ($40 eBay)
-Moog lower ball joints (~$60 eBay)
-Koyo wheel bearings ($40 eBay)
-AUP axles ($60 eBay)
-OEM Honda LCA bushings and misc parts (~$15/bushing, hondaautomotiveparts.com)
-Aurora rod ends & misc hardware (~$200 McMaster-Carr)
-ARP extended wheel studs ($40 eBay)
-quart black POR-15

Fitment and quality on everything was excellent, so take that for what it's worth

Hawkze_2.3

The first thing I did was pull the steering rack and replace the inner tie rod ends since they were pretty much destroyed after 200K miles. Didn't take many pics, but it is really self explanatory, you just may want to get a Helms manual to make sure everything is done correctly. I also have deleted power steering, so none of that stuff is there to deal with in this situation

The rack is difficult to remove with the exhaust header in the way, so removing that will help immensely.

-Remove wheels
-Remove cotter pin & castle nut at knuckle-toe rod joint
-Pop ball joints out
-Loosing steering column clamp bolt
-Loosen power steering connections
-Remove nuts holding rack to subframe
-Remove exhaust header
-Curse and try to get the rack out

Rebuilt and cleaned rack:

Hawkze_2.3

Next thing to do (really should be the first thing since you need the wheels on) is break the axle nuts loose. I went through 4 1/2"-3/4" adapters before buying a good 3/4" drive breaker bar from Northern Tool.

Then it's time to just start pulling cotter pins and removing bolts. Remember the axles can be difficult to remove due to the c-clip, but a good prybar will get them out. When you do take them out, have a bowl or something to catch the transmission fluid that will indefinitely come out.

For the stubborn ball joints you can use these:





So a few hours later you may have something like this:

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Next you may want to order and receive all your parts to make sure everything looks good. I was lucky and didn't have any issues....

Hawkze_2.3

Now your sitting there looking at a (probably) dirty bunch of metal parts that used to live on your car. Time to get started, and the best thing to do first is remove all the old worn junk that you want to replace.

A press would make things 100x easier, but I was really wanting to DIY all this stuff. I have a big vise, and was actually able to remove everything with it. It took a BFH plus creative use of sockets and careful hits to get all the bushings, bearings, and ball joints out, but I did manage to get it out at home without a press.

The c-clips holding the bearings in are massive, and you will need a good pair of snap ring pliers.



This 1st pic is the setup for hammering out the lower ball joint...it came out pretty easy with some good whacks.

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Then there are the LCA rubber bushings, there are many write ups out there on how to do these. I went with a hole saw to remove the rubber and drop the inner sleeve, and the hack-saw-the-outer-sleeve method. It worked pretty well.

I thought I might be able to just hammer the outer sleeves out, but they would NOT move unless the saw had cut a complete line through the sleeve...FYI.

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Old junk vs. New

This is the best part

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So now you will be looking at the bare cast iron suspension parts. My 1st thought was to refinish these so that when it all goes back together it will look nice, be easy to clean, and will not rust. You may or may not care

The process I did was:

-clean parts to remove basic dirt and grease
-grind down casting flaws, rough texture, and unnecessary brackets
-smooth metal with a flap disc
-sand blast (used the cabinet at my school's machine shop)
-install new bearings, bushings, and ball joints*
-etch with phosphoric acid
-clean thoroughly
-mist with water for a day or so to get a thin film of bright orange surface rust (this if prep for the POR15)
-prep and brush with 2 coats of POR15 gloss black

If you do POR right it is hard as a rock, and actually becomes molecularly bonded to the base metal. That's what the rust is for.

*Now for the bolded part...installing new stuff; I wanted to do all of this at home DIY style, but it just wasn't in the cards. I ended up taking everything up to the machine shop at school and using their massive press. I have a huge vise, and it couldn't even get the suspension bushings in This is where you may need to have a shop press the stuff in if you don't have access to a press.

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Finishing up the little stuff....

The axle rings have to be tapped back in, studs need to be pressed into the hubs, then the hubs pressed in the bearing (which has already been pressed into the knuckle).

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Now the last part of this which won't apply to 99% of people with a Prelude is the PFI traction bar. ESP makes a setup which is probably better in every way, but I already had this one so I ended up modifying it to fix the numerous serious issues it had.

The LCA mounts were straight-up metal-metal with no flex which created a lot of stress in many areas and made proper alignment difficult. I changed the mounting at this end to rod ends to alleviate all this stress and allow stuff to settle in how it needed to.

It also had very poor attachment of the rods to the bar itself, so I ended up taking a ton of measurements and getting some stainless shoulder bolts McMaster to get this thing to work without any movement or vibration under load.

The bar was also about 2-3" lower than it needed to be and my ground clearance sucked because of it. So I made new holes to raise the bar up and removed material from the mounting tabs.

Once it was raised up, it hit the lower radiator hose and drain plug, so then I had to make some holes in the bar for clearance. After that it was time for stripping, acid etching, and POR.

So moral of that story is to go with an ESP traction bar for your Prelude

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Putting everything back together....self explanatory, but a Helms manual is always good to have around for torque specs and any questions you may have.

Ball joints can be tightened at any point, but rubber bushings must be tightened only when the car is at ride height. I torqued all the BJs, axle nuts, and installed the wheels, then dropped the car down and torqued the shock bolts and inner LCA bolts. You can really ruin the rubber if they are tightened at the wrong angle.

So as of now I have done the best I could to get the wheels roughly straight to make it to the alignment shop, and am just waiting on 1 more package of custom shims and washers from McMaster for the traction bar mounts. Car should be on the road soon and I will update when/if the wheels fall off

mherkamp

Nice Work! This should def go in the FAQ, especially, as you say, these cars are getting up there in miles.

Rosko

iTrader: (1)

Good job dude looks good!

Hawkze_2.3

Thanks guys! I can't wait to have this thing back on the road good as new.

Hawkze_2.3

Woo, precision washers for the traction bar just arrived

BlackCatt

Awesome write up man, suspension looks new and tidy.
Have you had a test drive yet.

Acidcrakker

Nice i did this last year minus the painting the parts. Mega bitch job to do. Looks clean though

Hawkze_2.3

Thanks, I got it aligned last night and drove for over 2 hours. Everything went very well and the car feels so tight now, it's like brand new

And to finally get it back on the road it just needed these precision washers to center the heim joint between the to tabs (which are clearly welded at the wrong angle).

q16racer

bout time i see this car again!

Hawkze_2.3

Thanks Blake

Here's the car back on the ground with everything all buttoned up. Part of this project was getting the ride height even with the adjustable Koni yellows, so I started with the lowest setting (they don't go crazy low like many coilovers) and I'm pretty happy with it overall...

Lousy Beans

Great write up! Ill be tackling this soon so this will help a bunch. Thanks!

Acidcrakker

I like your wheels what brand are they

Hawkze_2.3

Thanks!

Acidcrakker they are 15" Volk TE-37s.

bdmlilburn

very nice just changed my cb7 lower ball joints, bearings, inner and outer tie rods, sway bar end links, and upper control arms and man the feel of a new front suspension is amazing

DCFIVER

Good write up. Did I miss the part where you removed the old hub bearing race yourself? Or did you send it out? Those are a bitch to remove and I hoped you changed it, it will save you from having to do it again later.