ok, i'm in the middle of doing this right now so i really need some help if any can be provided.

while replacing the rear springs/struts on an 89 dx hatch, the heads of the lower strut mount bolts snapped right off on both sides. ok, no big deal, i expected it to happen anyway cuz this car has never been worked on and is old. finally get the old shocks/springs out and pull out both old lower arms as well. decided to just replace lower arms to prevent future headaches, plus they come with all three bushings installed already. look up part numbers, go to dealer, order items, and they come in a week later. now the parts are in and i already have the new spring/shock assembly together so its just waiting to be thrown in. i go to put everything back in, and both bolts on the ends of the arms go in perfectly with no problems. the difficulties came when i was putting in the bolt for the lower shock mount and attaching the shock to the arm. apparently after careful comparison, the arms i received are identical to the old ones, except for one thing; the middle bushings (where the shock mounts) are half the length on each side of the old ones. so when i bolt it all up, there is almost a total inch of space left and the shock can slide around on the bolt shaft.

just to make sure, i've looked up part numbers and verified those i ordered and received. the shocks are definitely the right ones as well cuz i checked all the part numbers. now 89-91 lcas should all be the same but when i checked the computers, the 89 has 52350-SH3-A11 listed as its part # while 90 and 91 have 52350-SH3-A12 as their #s. i am considering going to the dealer tomorrow and seeing if maybe the 90-91 have the longer bushings i need but the fact of the matter is that the car is an 89 and the arms i ordered are the rite ones. i have no idea why they wont fit and why there is so much room left. if anyone can help out or has had the same problem, please let me know. it is like literally 0 degrees here and i have to get this done really soon to get back to school. thanks

-alan

EDIT: checked the shock mount bushing just now. even tho the 89 and 90 lcas have slightly different part numbers, the bushing numbers are all exactly the same, so i cant why these are shorter


[Modified by Pengo, 12:33 AM 1/18/2003]

 

I can't tell you why the new ones are different and wouldn't worry too much. It sounds like the crush sleeve is too short. I'd go to the hardware store, get a few of the proper sized washers and use them to take up the space. Don't let the shock slide around on the bolt. You'd be using the bolt in shear and and it should be in tension only i.e. torqued down on the crush sleeve. Good luck.

 

I have switched rear lower control arms before on CRXs and recommended it to many customers with no trouble. The '89-91 use the exact same lower shock clevice/fork and it actually goes on the Civic through 1995 and the Integra through 2001. In 1996, the Civic rear lower shock fork gets a much narrower span and also has a deeper mount. If you somehow got a '96-00 Civic rear lower arm (or at least bushing), this would explain why it is shorter than the span of your shock. Also the '96+ arm is taller there so the arm bottoms in the fork when the suspension droops so that is why the '96+ shock fork is deeper. That is all I can think of.

 

not too sure but im guessing the reason is because you got the wrong control arm (88 - 89hf) instead of 89(dx,si) - 91

 

quick question bro, you switch your crx rear lower control arms to what?

 

The '88 CRX chassis is the prefered one for racing due to lighter weight and the rear bumpsteer based on the placement of the rear trailing arm mounts on the shell. The problem is that the '88 comes with a stamped steel, inverted U shape trailing arm like the ITR and not the cast I-beam shape from later. This makes that shock bottom an eye instead of a fork. Since the fork rear shock is the same until 1995, they are more readily available than the one year eye shock model. I work for KONI and build a lot of race shocks for customers and life is just easier if you can use the fork shock. Until a few months ago, we did not have an externally rebound adjustable shock for the '88 and the ITR but now we do. So we change the '88 rear control arms over to '89-91 CRX arms because everything is the same otherwise. The only difference between the Si and the DX/HF arms within the same year is that they Si arms are drilled for rear sway bar bolts and the DX/HF arms aren't, the other holes and bushings are the same. If you want to put a regular rear bar on your DX or HF, just get Si arms. Susp. Tech. makes a rea bar that fits all models because it attaches to the lower shock bolt but I prefer the normal Si location.


[Modified by CRX Lee, 3:03 PM 1/20/2003]

 

thanks for your help guys. we went to honda and verified the part numbers again. we could have ordered another set, to see if they were different, but because we were short on time we went with the washer idea. it seems to be working very well.