Struts from hell

[sjagernauth@attmail.com (Stephen I Jagernauth)]

>Oh boy!!  You DO NOT need to pull the ball joint off the a-arm.  My
>assumption is that you are pulling the steering ball joint off (see earlier
>post) cuz THATS ALL YOU NEED TO DO to get the strut assembly out for bearings
>and/or strutt replacement, in fact, the bearing replacement can be done
>without the car needing an alignment.  Pull the brake, rotor, abs sensor,
>steering ball joint and the axle nut, three nuts at top of strut, pull
>assembly off.... a quick (20min job).....

Scott:

Are you forgetting pulling the strut off the axle and the ball-joint lives in 
the strut assembly?  That's why I was trying to drop the control arm 
ball-joint.  I did all of the above except I never got to the steering ball 
joint, that seemed real easy so I tackled the tough one first: the 
lower ball-joint and axle.  Would the order (i.e. steering arm off first) make
a difference?  And yes, I did torque everything back to spec with a little 
anti-seize compound for good measure.  You're right, it only takes 20 mins 
after you spend the first 3 mths getting the frozen bolts off :).  Looking on 
the bright side, I can now take the front-end apart in my sleep.

____________________________________________________________________________ 
Steve Jagernauth	               	'87 951 Pearl Black 
AT&T BCS			  	'87 Audi 5K CST 
Bridgewater, NJ 
sjagernauth@attmail.com