Good morning!
Finally decided to service the front suspension on my LS, especially knowing that this is a weak spot for them. As I mentioned earlier, here, replacing the stabilizer bar mounts did not solve the problem. We decided to diagnose the entire front end. Lifted it onto a hoist and started inspecting all ball joints, bushings, struts, everything turned out very sad indeed. The most disappointing were the struts; the left one was leaking, its mount was shattered into pieces. With the right one things weren't as bad but still had some wear in the mount. I don't quite understand why they couldn't make these mounts replaceable, oh well. Inspected the upper and lower control arm bushings, found cracks and tears everywhere, though not critical, just present. The strut mounting bushings were severely compressed. Sad, very sad, but gotta do it. The rack has a bit of play too... I decided to go all in and started saving up. Didn't feel like dealing with half measures or restoration at professional shops. Since original parts lasted 200k miles, there's no point in anything but originals. Also had significant vibrations; my fault for driving over 1 year with torn inner CV joint boots that I'd forgotten about. In summary, the repair cost turned out very unpleasant indeed. No choice, gotta order everything. Can't treat a car any other way.
In the end, this extremely non-budget set of parts was assembled:
— Front drive shafts — used (auction);
— Front lateral control arms — new, original. Part numbers (L — 4864050081, R — 4862050081);
— Front longitudinal control arms — new, original. Part numbers (L — 48670-59016, R — 48660-59016);
— Bolts for front drive shafts — new, original. Part numbers 9017722001 — 2 pcs.
— Right front drive shaft bearing — NSK. Part number 36DSF02CG53.
— Front struts — used, recycled. Very lucky since the condition was almost new; received with recently replaced struts and no sign of deformation on the mounts.
At that point I thought this was all I needed... Oh how wrong I was...
First thing I did was take it to a car wash, lifted the front of the vehicle onto jack stands, removed the front wheels to clean off all the dirt. Didn't want to work in sand and grease. Spent an evening on that.
Before:
After:
For cleaning used the first stage and Maguiar’s Super Degreaser. The chemical is really great but you need to wear a respirator while working with it, it smells terrible.
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