XC60 front struts changed

[JGEM]

With a 3 day weekend due to a public holiday I finally had the time to do the front struts

There is no video I could find of this work being done on an XC60 but I found a few on YouTube for Ford Mondeo Mk 4 which is very similar.

Videos of the job being done in a garage environment with the car on a lift and special tools like the big hockey stick type lever used to bend down the lower suspension control arm and separate the ball joint are of limited use to the person working from home however!

I was working from home with the car on axle stands and doing the job solo so my approach is geared towards that.

I found a few threads on other forums where the job was discussed in detail and the 2 main issues seemed to be
1) Separating the ball joint
2) Levering the suspension arm down far enough to get the ball joint out

The technique I ended up using was to remove the lower control arm completely which minimised levering and the need to undo the ball joint. (Although in my case I did later undo the ball joint as it came out so easily)

I removed the inner mudguard lining as this gave more space and also useful places to insert my home made wire hooks for hanging the caliper and drive shaft as the job progressed.


Things I found useful were:

Rattle gun – mine is a 240V electric one with adjustable torque settings
½ drive breaker bar
A length of sturdy pipe approx. 400mm long that slips over the breaker bar handle to give more leverage. (e.g. control arm and caliper bolts)
Torque wrench
Steel rod for levering – I used a 600mm length of 12mm diameter concrete reinforcing bar bought from local hardware shop. I slid the piece of pipe over this for most of the length as it’s gentler on hands and gives easily adjustable leverage – just slide the pipe out a bit to get more leverage.
PB Blaster penetrating oil in a spray can. This stuff is great – it really penetrates in. I sprayed this around the ball joint when bolt was removed and also around where the steering assembly clamps the bottom of the strut.
18mm extra deep socket suitable for rattle gun (impact driver)
18mm offset ring spanner (for strut top nut)
A couple of pieces of stout wire. (to bend into hooks to hand the brake cailper assembly and support the driveshaft)
A soft drift – for tapping the front axle in. (I had a length of brass rod about 150mm long and 15mm diameter
Spring compressors


What I replaced
Suspension strut, top mount and top bearing, control arm bolts, ball joint bolt
All bought from Spareto in Estonia who I have used 3 times successfully.

Things I now wish I had replaced at same time
Rubber pads that go under bottom of springs (mine were quite chewed up)
Bolts for the calipers (supposedly single use but mine have been removed and reused a couple of times)
Lower control arm assembly (complete with ball joint and rubber bushings)

These torque settings below I got from a US forum (hence the ft lb). They also provide a useful checklist when the job is complete as a double check that everything has been tightened.

Torque Specs from Alldata DIY

1. Driveshaft to wheel hub - two stages
a. stage 1 - 25 ft lbs
a. stage 2 - additional 90 degree turn

2. Lower Ball Joint to Steering Knuckle - 75 ft lbs

3. Outer tie rod end to knuckle - 60 ft lbs

4. Steering Knuckle to Strut clamp - 80 ft lbs

5. Disc Brake Shield to Knuckle - 7 ft lbs

6. Brake Rotor to Knuckle Torx Bolt - 25 ft lbs

7. Brake Caliper Brackets to Steering Knuckle - 150 ft lbs

8. Lower Control Arm (3 bolts)
a. Single bolt (towards front of car) - 2 stages
i. stage 1 - 103 ft lbs
ii. stage 2 additional 45 degree turn
b. Two rear bolts - 130 ft lbs

9. Strut Mount to Strut Tower (body) 3 bolts - 22 ft lbs

10. Front Stabiliser bar Link to Strut - 45 ft lbs


My old Britool torque wrench inherited from my dad only goes to 100 ft lb whereas some bolts are specified as 130 ft lb (2 of the 3 lower control arm bolts) or 150 ft lb (brake caliper). For the rear 2 control arm bolts I torqued up to 100ft lb and then used the rattle gun set on 130 ft lb for a final tighten. For the caliper bolts I tightened to 100ft lb and as the rattle gun would not fit in the space available I used the breaker bar to tweak these a little tighter (very imprecise I know)


As I was removing the lower control arm, the initial focus was undoing the 3 big bolts that held this, undoing the axle bolt (spray lots of oil in there) and whack the axle in with a soft drift. To remove the control arm plus hub assembly you need to free up where the bottom of the strut is clamped into the top of the hub assembly.

One useful tip I read on another forum made getting the strut out of the steering hub (knuckle) assembly a piece of cake. Where the suspension strut is clamped at its bottom by the pinch bolt simply remove the bolt and screw it in the other way, but first insert a piece of metal in the slot in the hub assembly so when the bolt is screwed back in it hits this and just spreads the hub assembly apart. (I just used a sturdy washer I had lying around) A good blast of PB blaster oil (or similar) and the strut comes out really easily from the hub.

Whilst everything was still in place I removed the bottom ball joint bolt and liberally sprayed penetrating oil in there. (If you're driving a car with lots of corrosionI would probably skip this step and leave the ball joint alone)

I removed and lowered to the ground the hub assembly and control arm, and hung up the drive axle with some stout wire. I then undid the top 3 bolts on the strut tower and removed the strut assembly.

I very carefully noted where everything was on the strut assembly and in particular the orientation of the little tabs on the top bearing assembly and the way it has a little plastic locating bit going through a hole in the metal in the stop strut mount.

With strut springs compressed I was lucky as regards removing the top nut and simply used the rattle gun to undo it. It was a bit tedious doing up the top nut on the new strut though as I had to use the offset ring spanner to tighten up the nut and use an Allen key in the strut shaft as a counter hold to stop the strut shaft rotating as the nut was tightened.

I pressed down on the old struts out of interest and one was totally worn out – it went down and stayed down. The other slowly returned to its original position but it took about a minute. Given my front shocks were so bad I’m impressed by how well the XC60 rode on what was effectively just springs only.

OK, so getting back to the hub assembly with the control arm attached, with very little effort the bottom ball joint separated from the hub assembly. I put it down to the penetrating oil I used. (I swear by PB Blaster). Also, there is way less corrosion on cars in NZ / Australia than there are on UK / US rust belt cars.

Note: it would be possible to not separate the ball joint and just keep the hub / control arm assembly as a unit and refit. (in which case no need to remove the ball joint bolt and spray oil down there) A bit heavier and more awkward to manoeuvre the whole assembly though. I was working on my own and was easily able to separate the ball joint so I went that route.

Now that I had the control arm removed and separated, I regretted not buying new ones as it would give me a new ball joint (integral with control arm) and 2 new rubber bushes. Mine was OK, but after 204,000 km it was looking well used and it would have been sensible to have changed this at the same time.

Refitting followed this sequence
- Fit strut assembly into strut tower (3 top bolts)
- Fit hub assembly onto axle and then onto bottom of strut and tighten up clamp bolt and axle bolt
- Fit lower control arm – the single front bolt only, partially tightened and with the back of the control arm loose and free from the chassis rail
- Using the metal rod as a lever put it into the (convenient) top hole on the control arm and bend the control arm down and pop the ball joint back into the hub assembly and fit the ball joint bolt. (Sliding the pipe over most of the length of the metal rod made it gentler on the hands and gave a bit more easily adjustable leverage) It’s a bit tricky and took a few goes to get it done – would have been very handy having a helper at this point. But I had to make do with using 2 hands and my knee.
- Fit rear 2 bolts on control arm (a bit of messing around aligning the holes – helps to have a large Phillips head screwdriver to align things and torch to peer up from underneath to confirm alignment)


I finished up by checking and double checking that all the bolts had been tightened and torqued up and then did a road test.

With new front struts (and having replaced the rear shocks a month or so back) the XC60 does not wallow as much on corners and is far less jittery over uneven road surface. Also, an annoying creaking noise that happened on low speed cornering has gone - I'm pretty certain that the replacement strut bearings fixed that.

[JJJ]

Quite a daunting job when doing it the first time as a DIYer, without the special tools the dealers have.

Your process will probably be streamlined considerably if it has to be done again :-).

Well done!