project_mercy

How to install an Energy Suspension Master Kit in a 5th Gen without a Press
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Note: No pictures at this point. I was in a hurry to get it done. I'll at least try to get some pictures of the parts so people know what I'm talking about.

This guide is for cheap people, specifically in a 5th gen hatch, and especially for those of us who live in a crappy salt-encrusted environment. Note, this'll take you a good day if things go WELL, and possibly worse if it doesn't (as in my case I had a bunch of bolts totally seized up, even with me actually having a really good impact wrench)


Requirements:

1x Energy Suspension Master Kit
1x Kitchen Oven with good ventilation
1x Car Alignment (at the end of this)
1x(at least) Extra Pack of Energy Suspension Lube
1x Hammer
1x 3/8" Set or something to smash with
1x 1/4" Cold Chisel or something equivalent
1x Hacksaw
2x Coarse or Medium (depending on your patience) Hacksaw Blades
1x Pack of Coarse Steel Wool
1x Bag of Rags
1x Drill with Random (working) Drill Bit (a few various sided hole saws would probably help)
1x Coping Saw, with a few coarse blades
1x Manual with proper torque values for your whole car
2x Jack Stands
1x Jack
1x Ball Joint Separator (http://www.jcwhitney.com/autoparts/P...X/appId-480787)
1x Torch, Propane hand-torch is fine
1x 10mm, 12mm, 14mm, 14mm deep, 17mm, 19mm sockets and ratchet
1x 8" or so, socket extension
1x 17mm wrench
1x Torque Wrench
1x Long standard screwdriver
1x C-clamp
1x Wide Mouth Shop Vise (it helps a LOT if it's mounted on something imminently stable)
1x Muffin Pan(tin)
1x Sharpie
1x Goggles
1x pair of welding gloves (or really-really thick kitchen "hotpad" gloves)
1x Big thing of Anti-seize.
A lot of PB Blaster or some other penetrating oil

Draw a diagonal line across the muffin pan, label one side Left(driver) Right(pass). From now on, as you pull fasteners off, put them in the muffin tin on the appropriate side. That way you don't loose them.

Chalk the rear wheels.

Break the lugs free on the front wheels.

Jack up the front of the car till you think you can crawl beneath it and work around the cat. Place jack stands behind the wheels in the front frame rail, trying to get them as far forward/away from the shock/knuckle area to give yourself some room.

Lower the jack to rest the weight on the jack stands.

--- ball joint boots and tie rod end boots --

Start with the easy ones. Toss these back in the box. I don't know why you'd install these. If your boots are bad, just replace the whole thing.


-- Transmission shifter stabilizer bushing set --

Second easiest. Crawl under the car to the middle where the shifter is. There's 2 10mm bolts that hold the bushing up. Spray that whole area with PB Blaster. You might want to wear goggles, and don't lay directly under it. Let it soak in, then wipe up the excess with a rag. Take out the 2 bolts, now put both hands to the sides of your resonator and slide the bushing off the back of the pipe it's staked on right now. It might take some work, and hopefully the PB Blaster is lubbing it up somewhat. Once it's off, pull the equivalent ES bushing out of the pack. Lube the center hole up, then push it back on. It may also take some effort, the lube will help some. Now pull the two metal tubes in the bolt holes in the old bushing, clean them up with a piece of steelwool (including wiping the wool bits off with a rag), lube them up, push them into the ES bushing. Now grab the metal plate from the old bushing, and push it onto the ES bushing (mine didn't have the nice straps on the side to hold it like the stock one did, so just hold it up) Put anti-seize (make sure it's a thin coat, else that stuff turns into locktite) on the bolts and put them back in. Torque to spec.

Crawl forward. Depending on if you have a d-series or b-series, you'll use a separate bushing. In both cases you have the extension rod (the bar that doesn't have the weird spring pin and such in it) On the B-series trani it's held on by a washer and a bolt on the side. On the D-series there's a U-bracket, and it's inside that bracket. Take the appropriate bolt out, pull the extension rod down. Stick a long screwdriver or something though it and pop it out. Lube up the outside and inside of the new bushing and push it on. If it's too tough, use the C-clamp and a block of wood. If it's the d-series, you'll need to then insert the brass shell into the center. Bolt it back up and torque to spec.

-- Steering Rack Bushings --

I'm questionable on the use of this. I also don't have power steering, so I won't tell you how to install the big round bushing. There's probably a better way, but here's how I did it.

Make sure the steering column is currently locked. Throw some bricks or something under the front wheels (which are raised right now) to keep them from turning. Remove the castle nut holding both the left and right outer tie rod ends on. Grease up the ball joint separator and use it to gently pop the tie rod ball joint out. Treat all ball joint boots with kid-gloves, seriously. Now get in the car, crawl under the driver's side, there's a plastic boot around the steering column with 2 clips on it. pull off those 2 clips, and remove the boot. There's 2 u-joints. On the u-joint closest to the firewall is a bolt. Take the sharpy and make a line across the u-joint onto the spine beyond to mark 'center'. Take out the 10mm bolt. Go back outside, remove the 2 17mm Bolts on the driver's side that hold the steering rack on. On the passenger side is a U-shaped band holding the steering rack on with 14mm bolts. Take those out too. Now, on the driver's side, pull the steering rack 'forward' (towards the engine) and rotate it counterclockwise at the same time. You'll likely have to move it left some to clear the brake lines. You'll notice that, where you took the 2 17mm bolts out, there's bushings. The metal sleeve is flanged on the back side. Use your set, or a small socket on one side, and the 19mm socket on the other side, and tighten the C-clamp over the small socket to press the bushing out into the socket in the back. Once it gets mostly out you can just pull it out. Pull the 4 bushings out and clean it up with some steel wool (the rack & sleeves). Lube up the 4 ES bushings inside and out, Put them back in the way the others came out. Don't worry about getting them snug, just get them in place.

If you have power steering, you'll have to figure out what to do with that bushing here. I don't know.

Now rotate the steering rack back the way it came and get the spline back into the car. Now (hopefully) the wheels haven't moved at all. Gently push/pull the tie rods and place them back onto the knuckle and thread the castle nuts back on by hand. Go inside the car and hook the u-joint back onto the steering spline, making sure to line up the black line. Hopefully they'll be pretty close right now, you can just twist the wheels slightly to get it right. Unlock the steering column and place it in the position where you generally drive straight with (since some people's wheels are cockeyed to begin with) and check to see if outside wheel position is the same. If not, unhook the u-joint and spin the spindle 360 degrees to re-line the black line up, and see if it's better. Just keep spinnin' till things look to be back to normal.

Now put the 10mm bolt back into the u-joint clamp, torque to spec, and put the boot & clips back on. Go back outside, cleanup, antiseize, and replace the driver's side 17mm bolts, get them mostly on. Now clean, antiseize 14mm passenger-side bolts, put the u-clip back on, and torque them down. Now torque down the driver's side bolts.

-- Front Shock Bushings, End Links, and Front Control Arm Bushings --

Now for the fun part.

Take of off the front wheels, Place them under the side frame rails for security purposes. Stow the lugs in the appropriate side of the muffin tin. On the bottom of the shock body (top of the shock fork) are two 12mm bolts holding the brake lines on. Remove those (put in tin). Loosen the 14mm pinch bolt on the top of the shock fork. Unthread the tie rod end castle nut and throw it in the tin. Pull off the (still should be loose) tie rod end. Now remove the cotter pin and take off the castle nut for the lower ball joint (that connects the knuckle to the lower control arm). don't disconnect it yet. Now remove the cotter pin and castle nut for the upper ball joint. Now grease up that ball joint separator again, and carefully pop both ball joints out. I prefer to do the top one first. Now gently, so as to not stretch or rip the brake lines, rest the knuckle to the side. If you want, you can just remove the two 10mm bolts holding the 2nd brake line stay, and the 12mm bolt that holds the caliper one, and take the caliper off and ziptie it to something (like the jack stand) and just stow the knuckle somewhere else.

Take the shock fork pinch bolt completely out, and pull the shock fork off. Now Open the hood, and to the right and left of the shock mount nuts (14mm) are two other 17mm nuts. Those hold the upper control arm on. Take those off, and slide the UCA down to clear the shock, and pull it off. Take the two 14mm nuts/bolts that hold the UCA onto the bushings out. Put the UCA to the side, you just want the pivots with the bushings in them for now.

Now, time for the lower control arm. If you have a front sway bar, disconnect that from the LCA. It's just a long bolt with a nut on it. Now, loosen the 17mm nut and 17mm bolt that hold the two pieces of the LCA together. Loosen the 17mm bolt holding the LCA upper pivot onto the chassis, and loosen the three 19mm bolts that hold the big round bushing from the rear side of the LCA. Now take these 4 bolts out, and pull the LCA completely off. Take out the 17mm bolt and nut holding the LCA together and split the LCA into two pieces. Now (you'll likely have to put it in a vice for this) take of the 19mm nut at the back end of the LCA to free that big bushing. Put all the appropriate bolts & nuts (and the two big bushing washers) into the muffin tin.

Do this to both sides of the car.

You should now have 10 pieces totally free from the car. the UCA, UCA pivot bar, the straight LCA piece. the triangular LCA piece, and the big bushing holder. Put the triangular LCA pieces and the UCAs to the side (with the muffin tin).

Take the other 6 pieces (3 pairs). each should have an annoying bushing in it.

We'll start with the big bushings.

First we need to talk about using the hacksaw. All of these upcoming procedures involve this trick. Take the blade off the hacksaw. insert the blade through the center hole, and then reattach and tension the blade. You now have the blade internal to the bushing.

Take the straight LCA parts, and the UCA pivot parts. You need to get the rubber part of the bushing out. There's myriad ways you can do this, so be inventive. The way I'm going to suggest is to use a drill bit (or a hole saw if you can get the right size) and cut into the rubber. In the case of the hole saw, you'll likely have to go at it from both sides, and try to get as close to the edge of the outer bushing shell. In the case of the drill bit, just make a lot of holes around the edge of the outer shell. Then take a coping saw (my suggestion) or a carpet knife or something and cut the bushing out.

Conversely, you can torch it out, but you'll need an acetylene torch. The propane won't get hot enough.

Anyway, take out all 3 LCA bushings (x2 of course) and both pivot bushings (again x2) for a total of 10 bushings. Try to clean up as much of the rubber as you can with your various implements of destruction. Now take the LCAs and pivot bars, and for each bushing outer shell, take the hacksaw (given our procedure above) and CAREFULLY make a cut 100% through the outer bushing shell. You need to get 100% through, and not cut into the outer item. Unsurprisingly, this isn't all that easy, given you've got about 1/1000th of a mm leeway. This should take up the majority of your time on the project which doesn't involve putting things on or off the car. You're welcome to try to use some power tool, but it's highly likely you'll not cut enough or cut too far, or worse, cut it unevenly so one side is fine, but the other is halfway through the arm. I cut into the arms slightly, but I used a die grinder to polish it back up.

Anyway, so let me reiterate, be careful.

Now, take the propane torch (unless you have something better) and torch up the remaining rubber inside the outer shells. The point of this isn't as much to get the rubber out, as to BURN as much rubber as you can. Reason being, the next step is:

Set your Kitchen oven to 500 deg., and put all 4 parts in. Leave them there and move on; (Note, if you leave too much rubber on them, your kitchen WILL smell like a racetrack from all the oil, grease, and tar on the control arms, and the rubber you're burning) Set your cooking timer. I left mine in for an hour and a half, but I have a crappy oven. YMMV.

Back to the big bushing. Make a relief cut into the rubber bushing. Make sure not to cut into the metal. Do two if you're so inclined. Put the large flat flange (that had the 2 bolts in it) in the vice, grab the rubber with some vice grips, hold the other side of the flange, and yank the bushing out. Do both of them. Take steel wool and clean up the insides of the metal flange. While you're there, notice there's a "lip" on one side of the flange.

Now get the ES big rubber bushings. Grease up the outside. In the ES bushing, one side of the bushing has a groove in it. This groove corresponds with the "lip" on the flange. You need to install it that way. There's a diagram in the directions (assuming you got them) Put the bush next to the flange, install both in the mouth of your trusty wide-mouth bench vice, and clamp that bad boy down till it pops into the flange. You may have to use a thin board or something to get an even press on the bushing. Now grease up the inside of the bushing,

(( I forget if there's a brass shell here or not. I'll check and update later ))

Now, hold the triangular LCA piece for the appropriate side, (they're labeled) hold it like it's in the proper position, and install the washer with the big hole first, then the big bushing/flange combo so that the two bolt hole side is towards the inside of the car, then the washer with the smaller hole, and finally the 19mm nut. Coat the threaded part with anti-seize and thread the nut on hand tight.

Go play Playstation or whatever till your "baking" is done. 1 at a time, and QUICKLY before they cool, take a piece out, go install it in the bench vice (the LCA's are easy, as you can put them in sideways and the concave nature of them holds well. The pivot bars are a bit more annoying), take your hammer and set, and pound out the outer shells. The should start to move after a few good pounds. If they don't, move on to the next shell while it's hot. Come back to it for a bit if you want, but if it doesn't come out easily, I suggest checking your expansion joint cuts you made with the hacksaw quickly, and then throwing it back in the oven to heat it back up.

One by one, take the pieces out and knock out shells. Hopefully you won't have to recook them. When you get all the shells out place them somewhere to cool. I'd suggest against dumping them in a pail of cold (or warm) water, as I'd be afraid they'd warp, but if it's some crazy hurry, you could try that.

Anyway, take the steel wool and clean up all the inside surfaces. If you cut too far into the metal, you can try using a Dremel or something to polish it up, or (if you got WAY too deep) you could try just smoothing the edges so it doesn't at least cut the bushing. I'm not sure how horrific a groove in the bushing surface will be I'm sure it won't add to the life of the bushing though.

For the LCA's you'll need (for each arm) 2 of the round inside bushings 4 of the flanged bushings, and 2 brass shells from the front shock bushing bag You'll also need 2 flanged bushings and 1 brass shell from the front shock mount bag. Basically, to shorten things up. Lube up the inside and outside of the bushing. Press it in with the vice. In the case of the smaller ones, you'll also need to press the middle, unflanged, 'round" bushing to sandwich between the two flanged ones. I used a socket to help get it in all the way. When you get all the bushings in, press the appropriate brass shell into the bushings. Now take the triangular piece and the straight piece, and put them back together. The stud sticking out from the triangular piece is notched, so push it on straight. Anti-seize the stud and the 17mm bolt. Then put the bolt and nut back. Lock it in the vice and torque them to spec. While you're there, flip it over in the vice and torque the 19mm nut holding the big bushing and flange on.

For the UCA. Take the pivot bar and lube up the bushings on the inside and outside (they're in the front shock bushing bag) and press them in with the vice. The narrower side with the part # imprinted on it goes towards the INSIDE of the pivot bar, so that the part #'s face each other. Now press the two brass shells on. Now get the UCA with the two bolts. Antiseize the bolts. Put them on and put the nuts on hand-tight. Now it's time to line it up (not that it's as important with the brass bushings) On the top of the UCA there's an inscribed line That should line up with a casting mark in the middle of the pivot bar next to it. Line those up, and torque down the bolts (trying to keep them lined up).

Install the UCA, antiseize the studs, and thread the 17mm nuts on, torque to spec. Put a thin coat of antiseize on the inside of the shock fork crimp and bolt, and reinstall it. The gap in the back should fit over a metal finger in the metal strap at the bottom of the shock body which the brake line was previously attached to. Get it fully on, and hand-tighten the 14mm crimp bolt on.

Install the LCA. Install the 17mm pivot bolt and the 3 19mm bolts (the long bolt goes in the 2-bolt pair, and towards the front of the car). Tighten all of them down till they're mostly in. Finish tightening and torqing the 19mm bolts to spec (so the 17mm bolt is still sort of loose).

Put a jack under the LCA and jack it up slightly. Make sure you don't obfuscate the lower ball joint hole. Take the knuckle and gently place the lower ball joint back into the LCA. antiseize the ball joint threads, then hand tighten the castle nut. Now pull the UCA down, and connect the upper ball joint. Antiseize and hand-tight again. Now attach the tie rod arm in the same way. Put the two 12 bolts (antiseize of course) for the bracket lines back on. Tighten them down till they're snug (you can torque them if you want, but they're a pain to get to).

Now take the jack and jack up the LCA till the car just barely comes off the appropriate side jack stand (like just a hair). Be super careful when you do this. Do not remove the jack stand. At this time torque down the upper ball joint castle nut, lower ball joint castle nut, tie rod castle nut, shock fork crimp bolt, and lower control arm pivot bolt. Replace the cotter pins in the 3 ball joints. If the hole doesn't exactly line up, then tighten it slightly till it does (don't loosen it). Gently lower the jack. Replace the tires. Thread lug nuts on hand tight.

Finish both sides, jack up front, remove jack stands, lower car. Torque down lug nuts.


<to be continued>

project_mercy

-- Rear Shock Bushings and Rear Control Arm Bushings --

I'll try to get to this on monday.

RXchencho

do the rear bushings for the trailing arms come in the kit, if so what is the kits part #.

rodrez.

Now that's a write up!

project_mercy

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by RXchencho &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">do the rear bushings for the trailing arms come in the kit, if so what is the kits part #.</TD></TR></TABLE>

No, they're not a part of the kit.

With the exception of the ball joint boots, which are (IMO) unquestionably a bad idea to install, I'm attempting to not say 'do this, don't do this' on the kit. It's sorta up to someone's opinion as to which bushings they may or may not want to install, and there's a lot of opinions on this board as to that.

That said, I personally didn't (and won't) install the trailing arm bushings.

Believe me, if you're a sharp cookie, after doing just THIS install, you'll know pretty much exactly how your suspension operates in all it's motions. You can see what you do and don't want to install.

I personally, knowing that my car is street & some autocross, and that I'm not ever going to race it, gladly installed all the master kit, sans the ball joint boots. I won't install the engine stiffeners (i've replace the mounts wth OEM mounts). I've also replaced the trailing arms with Mugen bushings. That said, having gotten the bushings, I think it's a load of crap, and I should have gotten OEM.

I view this thread is somewhat informative, YMMV:

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=493789


Modified by project_mercy at 12:43 AM 9/26/2004