jonathansc

2000 GS400 I purchased this car couple of years ago with 250k on it.

At 271k now and will be replacing the struts, control arms, ball joints, tie rods, rotors, and whatever other bushings you recommend with OEM parts. I hope to tighten up the steering, improve the front end handling, and eliminate the clunking over bumps.

Is there an order in which to replace all of these parts that makes the process the most efficient? Hope to do one side in a day.

Thanks in advance!

firelizard

iTrader: (1)

All at once. Don't forget your sway bar end links. If you know what you're doing (and nothing is seized) you can do all of it in an afternoon.

jonathansc

Thanks for the tip regarding the sway bar links.

To clarify my original question: easier to do shock then upper control arm then lower control arm OR vice versa OR pull everything off then replace? OR some other sequence?

sbagdon

I'm not sure oem would be worth it... struts alone, just for the parts, would be $1k? The only part I'd prescribe would be the lower ball joints. Speaking of which...

Lower ball joints, immediately, not in any order. Google the images of failures.

Because of budget, our order was lower ball joints (prevention), then struts (dangerous up/down harmonics over potholes), then upper control arms (motion).... just note, that the struts have to come out to do the upper control arms. That got rid of 99% of any looseness, anything else would be to get rid of the 1% of thunk, such as sway bar links, or lower control arm(s). We don't see any wear on the outer tie-rod ends, yet we'll do those, one day, yet that requires an alignment, that's why we're putting that off.

As per an afternoon, depends on if you do bare or quick struts. We did bare (frighteningly inexpensive, for the 4 struts), and it took us 1/2 day just to do the struts.

After that, it was the rotors/pads and one seized caliper, to get rid of dangerous left/right steering wheel wiggle, yet now the car tracks almost like-new, at (ahem) highway speeds. There's other bushings we could do, yet for 200k+ miles, it's a great highway car, now.

firelizard

iTrader: (1)

You don't need to remove the upper control arm to remove the lower, nor the inverse. You can replace the lower ball joints without removing anything else. You can remove the upper or lower control arm without removing the strut but it's a lot easier to take everything out.

What you should actually be doing is looking up instructions or a manual, since how to do this work has been covered a lot already.

sbagdon

Don't see how. You might be able to loosen the bolts, yet the bolts are so long, that they'll bump up against the strut body, when you try to remove the bolt.

Have you removed the upper control arms without removing the struts?

firelizard

iTrader: (1)

Yes, I have. Maneuvering the bolts in and out was tricky but possible.