Accord Suspension Work

Michael’s daily driver is a 2000 Honda Accord. While that car is pretty reliable, it takes a bit of work to keep it in tip top shape. Expect to see additional articles on self repairs and modifications to this car in the future as well!

This car was still driving on the stock suspension. Seeing as how this car was manufactured in 1999, that means those shocks and springs have seen a lot of miles and have carried the car for quite some time. Over time, the dampening effects of the shocks led to the car having a harder time killing shakes, so the car tended to have a bit more bounce to it than it really should have for a well operating machine. The only real fix for this are new struts.

For Christmas, I was gifted a pair of brand new Monroe Quick-Struts. These are fully assembled spring, strut, and shock assemblies make it a breeze to change out your suspension and are pretty affordable. They were purchased on RockAuto. I really recommend that website to find good parts for your cars at a reasonable price.

The steps to replace these were really straight forward. Pretty much just unscrew it all, pull the old out, and put the new in. Replacing the rears will be complicated a bit because the top bolts exist under the bench seat so I’ll need to remove that to access it. I might also go ahead and plan out any potential maintenance and inspection I’d like to do for the gas tank when I get around for the rears, as that stuff is all under the bench as well.

• Loosen the lug nuts for the wheels
• Lift the car and follow good safety procedures on putting the car on jack stands
• Remove the wheels
• Move the brake line off the damper fork and out of the way
• Loosen the damper fork from the strut and slide the strut out.
  • Optionally, take the damper fork completely off. It can make it easier getting the strut swapped out
• Unscrew the nuts holding the strut assembly in together above.
• Practice your spatial skills to pull the old strut out
• Do pretty much the same motion to get the old one in
• Loosely screw the top bolts on the new strut so you have plenty of play down below
• Slip the damper fork back on and get it tightened to spec (32ft-lbs for pinch, 47ft-lbs for through bolt)
  • You may want a friend to help lift the brake and suspension arms to find a good way to line things up
• Tighten up the top nuts to spec (8×1.25, 144in-lbs; 10×1.25, 37ft-lbs)
• Re-attach the brake line to the damper fork
• Put the wheels back on and tighten the lug nuts to spec (80ft-lbs)
• Safely lower the car back on the ground

Quotes for this job from many shops in the area were around $1,000. Since I bought this car for $3,000, I’m definitely not looking to spend a ton to keep this thing going. A good suspension is really critical to good safety of the car though, so these had to be done. These Monroe Quick-Struts are currently for sale on RockAuto for only ~$70/ea, so ~$280 for a set of four. So for a little bit of my time, a bit of lefty-loosey-righty-tighty knowledge, and shopping at the right parts store I saved over $700.

Even though I’ve only replaced the fronts so far, the ride quality has really increased dramatically. I probably won’t bother writing up another blog post for replacing the rears as its mostly the same unless I find out something interesting inspecting the gas system.

All in all, I highly recommend people look into what repairing their own car really looks like. Often times a lot of these wear and tear kinds of repairs and general maintenance are not incredibly complicated. That said, always practice good safety practices and look up the specifications of how things are supposed to be put back together. Its important your ride continues to be safe after you get done with it!