Hey guys...Has anybody done a front suspension rebuild on their 850? If so, how difficult was it? Would you recommend having it done by a shop? I've got pretty decent mechanical skills but, never did any suspension work with the exception of replacing a ball joint on my old '66 Mustang (pretty easy).

My 850 just turned over 187k and the front suspension is just tired, I feel just about every bump and I've been hearing a, best way to describe it, "plastic-y clunk" sometimes on the passenger side, There is slight play in the tie rods and ball joints. I saw the front suspension rebuild kit on FCPGroton and was thinking of just rebuilding it myself before I put new tires on it. My wife drives this car to work everyday (64 miles round trip) and I really would like to keep it going for her for at least another 2 years.

 

BTW, I found some good instructions here which made it look doable:

http://www.volvolution.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=87

 

Do it yourself. I never did suspension work before and after reading a few posts (here and at MVS) I felt very confident I could do it. The 850 is pretty easy to work on.

Buying the extra tools to get the job done saved me a ton of money compared to a shop doing it. Example: Inner tie rods were ~27 bucks a piece from FCP and it's a 20 minute job on each side (for a guy that never did it before). Firestone wanted $127 for one rod and $90 for the labor! Bullocks, I say, Bullocks.

So I did it all and smiled like a proud papa when I was done!

FCP sells several kits, their complete suspension kit (about $600 or $700 IIRC) has everything you need EXCEPT for inner tie rods, so get those at the same time. Some of the parts in their kit are poo-poo'd by some but it would at least give you an idea of what parts to get if you want to upgrade anything.

The kit comes with Sachs shocks & struts which are factory, so if you want a firmer (more firm?!) ride, do some thread searching on the Koni's, which many opt for.

Where in Chicagoland are you located? If you're around Glen Ellyn, I could loan you the spring compressor, jack stands and a few other items I had to get for the job.

 

Yeah. Suspension is super easy. Go to FCP Groton and check their suspension rebuild kits.

 

Thanx, good info there! I'm in Oak Lawn. Besides a spring compressor and tie rod fork, what other specialty tools did you need? I'm not looking for a performance car like ride, just decent without a lot of noise and without a ball joint failing and having the wheel come off.

 

It "looks" easy on paper but, I guess my main concern is getting some of those bolts off that probably haven't been disturbed since it left the factory 15 years ago. Fortunately, the car was very well maintained by the previous owner and I don't see a lot of rust on the suspension parts, unlike my 240.

 

I'm 60 years old and had never done anything like this before either and I did both of mine myself recently. I did have my son in law do the axles though, but the struts, ball joints and sway bar end links I did myself.

If you do it don't use a torque wrench to tighten the bolts. Just make them as tight as you can. After torqueing to specs I had clunking, and my son in law said retighten everything and don't use a torque wrench. I did and the clunking was gone. Some bolts turned close to 1/4 turn when retightened.

 

So you just tightened them as far as they would go with a regular ratchet? Is it possible to overtighten?

 

if you can overtorque some of those suspension bolts to the point where they break, you need to be on a "worlds strongest man" competition.

Some of those bolts definitely dont need to be ridiculously overtorqued, but you should be fine. As for stuff being hard to take off, spend 25 bucks or so on a breaker bar. that generally gets stuff done.

Speaking of that, one time i was trying to take the bolt out of the harmonic balancer on a honda.....couldnt get the trick where you bump the starter to get it lose, couldnt get it with a breaker bar....i wound up using a breaker bar and a section of 4 ft fence post to make a 5 ft long arm, and THAT finally got it loose.

 

Torque is an amazing thing!

 

I picked up a foot-long fork, but it did nothing to help. I wound up having to use a 3-foot pry bar you get the control arm off the bottom of the hub - as well as PB Blaster, propane torch, a BFH and a lot of cussing. I could swear it took me 30 minutes to get the dang thing off the drivers side, but I was having shimmy on that side so I thought that was part of the problem...

There's a few ratchet sizes you'll need to make sure you have - I seem to recall 15mm, 17mm, 18mm, 22mm and 23mm - might be more, I just can't remember (and I could be mistaken).

+1 on the breaker bar. Probably be good to have a two or three-foot iron pipe from Home Depot to add some length if necessary.

Of course, your good ol' friend the Jack Stand will play a huge part in the work. It'll help to raise all four corners at the same time.

Here's two good posts for doing the front:
http://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/for...hp?f=1&t=28455
http://members.shaw.ca/heeeeee/strut/

and another for the rear:
http://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/for...hp?f=1&t=28318

These really helped me get up to speed.

 

I have 3/4" breaker bar and a 4' fence post sitting in the garage. Only ever used it on axle nuts. You don't want to use a 3/4" breaker to retighten the suspension bolts. I used a 1/2" drive breaker, but didn't really go as tight as I possibly could. But a good bit tighter than torque specs. My son in laws torque spec is "good n tight" said with a german accent.

 

Thanx man! I just browsed thru the 2 links for the front they look very helpful.

 

I keep an old wood splitting maul in the garage. It not only has an open ended steel handle but a 4 pound steel head at the other end. When ever we need more leverage, we just call "Mongo".

 

One other question I forgot to ask, how do you know when your front springs should be replaced? I was thinking since I'm already taking the struts off, maybe I should replace the springs too? The car's height seems fine and I would save about $100 if I reused them.

Thanx again guys for all the good input. I definately feel like I can do this now. Just wating for my tax refund so I can order the parts and get started.

 

I have never repalced the springs on any Volvo I have ever owned and i've owned six of them. Unless you want to lower it, the chances of needing new springs is very low.

 

Good, in that case I will reuse the ones that are on there already. It really starts to add up price-wise when you include the rebuild kit, inner tie rods and, since the brakes are about due, new pads and rotors (since I'm in there already). It's still cheaper than a new car payment I guess.

 

Couple of thoughts:

So what did you order as far as parts and what brands? Pretty critical on suspension parts; e.g. stay away from scan-tech.

And don't you guys have a compressor and air tools? An air-hammer w/pickle-fork attachment will make short work of removing old parts!

 

That's what I've been thinking! Just last weekend I replaced the struts and springs on my 850 ('94 with over 210k miles). There were a couple of bolts that I had to break loose with a breaker bar (no pipes necessary other then the couple attached to my shoulders), the rest came out with the impact wrench with out issue.

I opted to replace all of my springs for a couple of reasons: First, someone put the wrong springs on the rear at some point in my cars life. Second, I'm lazy and didn't want to try and take the old front strut apart, so much easier in the end to have the new strut built and ready to swap in (I think the kit has spring seats and upper strut mounts but you may need a washer and that funky retention nut).

Take your time and it will all go just fine.