# Service Manuals?/Control Arm & Strut Replacement



## Guest (Sep 24, 2002)

Ok, So I hit a piece of wood in the road at high speed and need to replace my lower contol arm and strut in the front right.

I was wondering if anyone has the service manual somewhere where it could be downloaded...

If not if anyone has any adivce. Are there any gotchas I need to watch out for?


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## red SE-R (Jun 23, 2002)

i had something similar happen to me. mine took a hit to a curb thanks to a pot hole the size of alabama witha family of six living in it right next to the curb. sent the right front sideways into the curb and did almost 3k worth of suspention damage and i was only doing about 35 mph. they had to replace the lower control arm, knuckle, hub, bearing, strut, ball joint, and two rims. and get this i was parallel to the curb not a frontal impact. it took nissan almost 4 weeks to get me a new strut... national backorder...
anyway is this all that needs to be replaced? you might want to make absolutely sure. im assuming that you dont want to file on your insurance here.. so take it to the dealer pay them an hour's diagnostic on the damage. but be sure you tell the service writer (manager) you are going to do the work yourself that you just need to know what all has gotten damaged. ask him to give you a print out of the specs on these components and what the tech found out. (ie: if anything is even slightly bent.) then order those parts. this should only take you about 1/2 a day with the proper tools simply unbolt the two large bolts holding the strut to the knuckel, the three nuts on the strut tower and the strut will come out by lowering the contrul arm assembly. ( take the brake rotor and caliper assembly off first) then as far as the lower control arm there are two sets of bolts holding it to the frame. and the lower ball joint nut. a pry bar and ball joint seperator are needed to dissasemble these items you will need access to a press to get the new bushings into the control arm (call around to see what shops can do this if you dont have a large bench vise.
a spring compressor for the spring removal (rent it at autozone) 
and once you get it all done and back together get an alignment. 

granted this is the simple instructions if you want a detailed step by step ill write one up for you.


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