A bumpy ride in your pickup truck can be a lot worse if your front struts are going bad. The struts work to absorb the impact of the truck hitting bumps, potholes, and other obstructions in the road to ensure you have a smooth ride. However, when the struts go bad, your truck will start bouncing a couple of times as you drive over bumps and pot holes. Your steering will also be harder to control, and it will usually take longer than normal to stop the truck. You need to replace the struts to fix the problem. If you have never changed the front struts yourself on your pickup truck, and you would like to try it this time around, here is how you can remove and replace faulty full-assembly struts on your truck.
Accessing the Front Struts
You should work on one side of the truck at a time. Loosen the lug nuts on the front wheel of the side you are working on before you jack up the truck. The wheel will spin if you try to loosen them after you've jacked the truck up, and this will make the job a lot harder. Jack up the front end of truck and place jack stands under it to hold it up. Never rely on the jack to hold the vehicle up because they are known to collapse and injure people. Take the lug nuts off and remove the wheel.
Removing Old Strut Assembly
The strut assembly is on the backside of the wheel well. You will see the large spring and the strut as soon as you remove the wheel.
As a precaution to make sure you put everything back correctly, you should take a picture of the assembly before you disconnect the bolts holding it in place. You can refer back to the picture to make sure it all looks the same when you are done.
Remove the bolts at the bottom of the assembly in the wheel well first.Then raise the hood of the pickup truck and look at the top of the wheel well inside the engine compartment. There will be two or three bolts sticking up through the wheel well. Remove the nuts to the bolts. Go back to the side of the truck and pull the assembly out of the wheel well.
In some cases, you may have to move the upper control arm to make room to slide the strut out of the wheel well. The upper control arm is bolted to the frame and axle. Remove the bolt going into the frame and push control the arm to one side to make room to remove the strut assembly.
Install New Strut Assembly
Slide the bolts at the top of the new assembly through the holes that go through the top of the wheel well. Reach inside the engine compartment and place the nuts on the bolt. You only want to hand-tighten the bolts for now. Reconnect the bottom of the assembly to the bracket on the wheel assembly. You can now tighten all the bolts. Make sure to replace the bolt connecting the control arm to the truck's frame.
Put the wheel back on the truck and lower the front end. You are now ready to repeat the process on the other side of the truck. For more information, contact Jones Automotive or a similar company.
Share19 May 2016
Hello, my name is Veronica. Welcome to my site. I am excited to talk to you about DIY and professional auto repairs. Most of the maintenance tasks on your vehicle can be completed in your own driveway. You just need to right tools and repair manuals to complete the job at hand. Of course, there are plenty of tasks best left to the professionals. As you learn to do your own maintenance, you will start to easily tell the difference between professional and DIY worthy tasks. I will use this site to provide all of the information you need to know about this process. Thanks for visiting.