Velations

im doing my bushings next week and I learned that I have to lower the car onto its full weight before I torque everything. What's the best way to go about doing this? I've read about driving it onto ramps but doesn't the car have to be the same height? Should I lower it onto two ramps front and back? The space under my accord is a little small to just reach in. Also what's the torque specs on the nuts? Can't find it anywhere.

Bently_Coop

If you have the car on jack stands use the floor jack under the control arm to compress the suspension. I use some Prothane Jack pads for my Arcan jacks as to not damage the fancy parts we typically put on.

Tyson

you just put the car on 4 jack stands, then put the jack under the control arm, when its slightly off the jack stand, you tighten the bolts.

i just go "german" torque, gudentite.



how come you havent downloaded the service manual? its not hard to find.

CZ_Mate

Can you put the Link to the service manual 🙂

Tyson

honestly this site doesnt like links to sites of copyrighted material to download, even tho its publicly available on hondas website, and its almost the year 2020...yadayadaya.

not trying to be a dick, but its not hard to search for a decent copy. honda.uk still has the crx manual up.

[if you read between the lines, i gave you the answer...]

CZ_Mate

Just thought i would ask. I was just googling proper preload and this link came up. So i thought i would ask.

Dilbones

Here's what we do to our race cars:

1.) Place a piece of tape at the top, middle of each fender
2.) With the car on a flat surface and the suspension settled, measure from the center of the hub to the piece of the tape and record
3.) Loosen ALL articulating bushings for the corner of the car you're working on
4.) Disconnect the sway bar at the end you're working on
5.) Do what Tyson has shown-- with the car on jack stands, jack each corner of the car's hubs to the correct height as measured with ALL articulating bushings loosened
6.) When the hub is at the correct height, tighten ALL articulating bushings

This process beats getting under a lowered car on toe plates to do the same thing, fo sho.

Tyson

just so the obvious isnt missed and people think you HAVE to do ALL the bushings EVERY TIME, you really dont. the change in range of angles to the stock bushings isnt THAT much when changing springs. its NOT BAD to do it all, i just dont want ppl assuming TYSON SAID DO THEM ALL. just follow the manual, which a lot of ppl werent even aware of before i started preaching this.

the point is to NOT attempt to torque the bolts that you needed to remove in order to swap out the suspension in a sagging state. i can only assume many ppl in their eagerness have done this, and its what rips rubber bushings.

when swapping suspension ppl typically can let the LCA hang down, so in the front its really only the lower shock bolt since the ball joint at the end has to come off and is independent of angle. in the rear its both the shock bolt and the end bolt. now if you loosened the inner bolt, then sure, do that again under load too, but typically i dont.

if its a drastic change in ride height, like from stock to slammed, then sure do them all. a slight change in ride height after that, just do whats needed.