Replaces
Part Details
TRQ suspension kits are manufactured using premium raw materials and coatings for extended service life. Each TRQ suspension component is designed to be a direct, maintenance-free replacement to the stock unit. To extend the life of your steering and suspension components, TRQ recommends replacing components in pairs, sets, or kits. All products are fit and road-tested in our Massachusetts R&D facility to ensure we deliver on our promise of Trusted Reliable Quality.
Product Features
Replacing struts used to require specialized tools to compress, remove, and transfer the old spring and mount. Our Pre-assembled, complete strut & spring assemblies come with all new parts and make the job much quicker and easier for the do-it-yourself mechanic.
Strut & spring assembly contains:
Install Tip: When replacing steering components, have a professional alignment performed afterwards. This ensures proper tracking and even tire wear.
Our steering and suspension components are pre-greased and sealed for long life and do not require the extra maintenance typically required by greaseable versions.
Item Condition:
New
Attention California Customers:
WARNING: This product can expose you to chemicals including Lead and Lead Compounds, which are known to the State of California to cause cancer, and birth defects or other reproductive harm. For more information, go to www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.
Lifetime Warranty
This item is backed by our limited lifetime warranty. In the event that this item should fail due to manufacturing defects during intended use, we will replace the part free of charge. This warranty covers the cost of the part only.
FREE Shipping is standard on orders shipped to the lower 48 States (Contiguous United States). Standard shipping charges apply to Hawaii and Alaska.
Shipping is not available to a P.O. Box, APO/FPO/DPO addresses, US Territories, or Canada for this item.
Expedited is available on checkout to the United States, excluding Alaska, Hawaii.
Final shipping costs are available at checkout.
Created on:
Tools used
Mike: Hi, I'm Mike from 1A Auto. We've been selling auto parts for over 30 years.
What's up, guys? I'm Andy, from 1A Auto. Today I'm gonna be installing this strut in this 2011 Ford Explorer. If you need these parts or other parts for your vehicle, click the link in the description and head over to 1AAuto.com.
Whenever you do any kind of suspension work or front end work on a vehicle, you're gonna wanna go to a local shop and have the alignment performed. 'Cause you don't want any premature tire wear. I'm gonna loosen the lug nuts up, I'm just gonna use a 19-millimeter socket and a breaker bar. I'm just gonna crack them free. Now, we're gonna raise and support the vehicle, we're using a two-post lift. If you're doing this at your house, you can use a jack and jack-stands. We're gonna remove the lug nuts. Once those lug nuts are off, take the tire off. I'm gonna spray some rust penetrant on here, that'll help us get the nut off. I'm also gonna spray rust penetrant on these two bolts for the strut. All right, now we're gonna use a 21-millimeter wrench, I'm gonna loosen this nut. Once it loosens a little bit, the stud is gonna spin as well.
So, we're gonna need to hold the stud, I'm gonna use a 10-millimeter socket and a ratchet. That'll hold the stud. You're gonna put the ratchet on tighten, that'll keep it from spinning while we're loosening the nut. And once it gets pretty loose, it won't spin back and forth anymore. And I should be able to take it off by hand. There we go. Now I can take it off by hand and pull it out. So, slide this out of the strut bracket. You may have to turn the wheel a little bit. Slide that out, and out of your way. All right, now we're gonna take these bolts out for the front strut. I'm gonna use a 21-millimeter wrench and a 24-millimeter socket and a breaker bar, loosen the nut up. All right, before I take that off, I'm gonna loosen up the bottom one. Now, I'll switch to a ratchet, take this nut off. Take that nut off.
Then I'll take the top nut off. Before I take those bolts out, I'm just gonna remove this ABS wire. Just pull this out, the little rubber grommet, slide it off. Now, I'm gonna take a hammer and tap these bolts out. Tap the bottom one out. Should be able to just wiggle them out. And we can separate the knuckle from the strut. We're gonna have to take these four nuts off, up top here. There's a 15-millimeter socket and a ratchet. And it'd be better if I had a semi-deep 15, but just a regular 15 will work. I'm just loosening these up. Before I take the last nut off, I am gonna have to support the strut assembly. You wanna make sure you do not take this middle bolt out. This middle nut. Just take the outer ones off. Now, with the last one on there, I'll grab the spring and strut assembly, and then take this last nut off.
Then I can grab it from underneath, get the ABS wire out of my way. Slide it down. And pull it out. One thing you wanna make sure about this knuckle, is the brake hose, make sure you don't have too much tension on the brake hose, right here, that's good. But, if it was sagging any more, you wanna put something underneath here to support it. Just keep that in mind. Here's our old strut assembly. Here's our new strut assembly from 1AAuto.com. As you can see, the shape is the same. Same bracketry, same brackets here. The holes are in the same position. Has a nice spring that it comes with. Flip it around, the strut mount is the same. Comes with new nuts. Get yours at 1AAuto.com and you'll be ready to rock and roll.
We're gonna take the nuts off this strut mount before we install it into the vehicle. And we'll line it up underneath. And then once that's lined up, install the nut. Then I can let go of the strut. You could also use a helper if someone wants to hold the strut while you're trying to put the nut on--that would be a lot easier. So, I'm gonna take a 15-millimeter socket and a torque wrench. I'm gonna tighten these nuts up to 41-foot-pounds. Now, I'm gonna take the knuckle and line it up with the strut assembly. Gonna take a little bit of effort to force it in there. There we go. Pull this up a little bit. You're supposed to replace these nuts and bolts when you're doing this job. At least Ford recommends to replace them. But, we're gonna reuse these. Take a hammer and just hammer them in. And take the nut, put that on, and put that one on.
Now, I'm gonna take my 24-millimeter socket and a ratchet and 21-millimeter wrench, hold the bolt with the wrench and tighten down the nut. Same with down here. Now, I'm gonna torque these with a torque wrench. I'm gonna torque them to 180-foot-pounds. Now we're gonna take this ABS harness and slide it into the bracket right there, where the rubber grommet is. Now we're gonna line this top of the sway-bar link up. Right through there. Take the new sway-bar link nut, slide that on. I'm gonna tighten that down and then we're gonna torque it. I'm gonna torque this nut to 111-foot-pounds. Reinstall the tire. Put the lug nuts on. And lower the vehicle. Now, we're gonna torque these lug nuts to 100-foot-pounds. We're gonna use a torque wrench, and we're gonna torque them in a star pattern. The reason you do it in a star pattern is so that the wheel gets tightened down properly against the rotor, and evenly. You can go around again just to double check, make sure you got them all. You're good to go.
Thanks for watching. Visit us at 1AAuto.com for quality auto parts, fast and free shipping, and the best customer service in the industry.
Tools used
Tools used
Before you start, you wanna be aware that after you're done this job, you're gonna wanna go to an alignment specialist so that you can have the vehicle aligned so you don't wear out the tires prematurely. Take off the center cap, you can use a pry bar. If you don't want to scratch the wheel, you can use a rag or a cloth. Get underneath here, pop it off. All right. Take lug nuts off, use a 19-millimeter socket and remove the wheel. Now, I'm gonna loosen up this jam nut, use a 21-millimeter wrench. And that's good. It's just gonna be loose. Now, I'm gonna take this nut off, use a 21-millimeter socket. And sometimes it'll start spinning, the stud is spinning, so I need to hold that. So, I can take a 21-millimeter wrench and a 10-millimeter socket. And this is just gonna hold the stud from spinning. Take that nut off and slide the tie rod out of the knuckle. There you go.
Now, I'm gonna unscrew the tie rod and just count how many turns you have. So, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 20, 21. So, write that number down so when you go to put it back together, it goes together somewhat where it was when you took it apart. Now, we're gonna use some locking pliers and just put them on the inner tie rod so it doesn't spin. I'm gonna take a 21-millimeter socket and just take the jam nut off completely. Now. you're gonna take this clamp off. You can use some hose clamp pliers or even some regular pliers. Just slide it off. And then we're gonna take the inside clamp off and just use a straight... Now, you can use a straight pick and just try to get in there. Just wanna try to spread it out a little bit. And normally you can't reuse this but if you're careful enough, you might be able to reuse it. And it popped. And slide that off. And sometimes you can bend this back and reuse it, sometimes you just need a new one. And just grab the boot and just slide it off. You can use a pick right here and just try to help slide this off a little bit easier. I'll just pull it real hard to get that off.
All right. Now, we're gonna use a special tie rod tool. There is different tools that you can use and just attach it like this, it will tighten these nuts down. Now, I'll just put an extension on here and a breaker bar and loosen it up. There we go. All right. At this point, I can take the tool off or just take it off once I take the tie rod off. And there we go. You can take the new inner tie rod. If you choose, you can put some thread locking compound on the threads. Looks good. And just get it started. So, you could use the same tool to put it on or something a little bit different, something like this. This has an adapter. Slide this over here and just lock that on. Now, I can torque it. I'm gonna torque that to 66 foot-pounds. There we go. So, I'm gonna install the boot and put the clamp back on. And I'm just gonna take a little bit of grease. I'm just gonna put the grease right here. That's where this part of the boot is gonna sit right there. Put a little more to help slide it on. Get that lined up again and slide it over the body of the steering rack. And that's good right there.
All right. Now I'm gonna tighten that clamp up. I have some special pliers that are gonna tighten the clamp up. They squeeze it, push it down a little bit. And I just had to bend the shields back a little bit just so I can get these in here. Get that to line right up. Looks good. And just squeeze it. And I'll put this clamp on. That's good. And put the jam nut on. Now, I'll take the outer tie rod in and count my turns 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. Take 21 turns. And that's just gonna get the alignment closer. You still need to have an alignment done. All right. Now, slide this into the knuckle. Take the nut and tighten the nut up. I'm gonna use my wrench on the nut, use the socket on the stud and just tighten this up. And now you can torque this to 111 foot-pounds. Here we go. All right. Now, we're gonna tighten up this jam nut. If you have the ability to use a torque wrench, you can tighten that to 46 foot-pounds. Take the wheel, put it on, put the lug nuts on. And now I'm gonna torque these lug nuts to 110 foot-pounds. And I'm gonna do that in a star pattern to tighten the wheel down evenly. And just go around again, double-check. Center cap, tap it back on. Good to go.
Tools used
Before you start, you wanna be aware that after you've done this job, you're gonna wanna go to an alignment specialist so that you can have the vehicle aligned, so you don't wear out the tires prematurely.
Take off the center cap. You can use a pry bar. If you don't wanna scratch the wheel, you can use a rag or a cloth. Get underneath here. Pop it off. All right. Take the lug nuts off. Use a 19-millimeter socket, and remove the wheel. Now, I'm gonna loosen up this jam nut. Use a 21-millimeter wrench, and that's good. It's just gonna be loose. Now, I'm gonna take this nut off. Use a 21-millimeter socket. And sometimes it'll start spinning. The stud is spinning. So, I need to hold that. So, I can take a 21-millimeter wrench and a 10-millimeter socket, and it's just gonna hold the stud from spinning. Take that nut off, and slide the tie rod out of the knuckle. There you go. Now, I'm gonna unscrew the tie rod, and just count how many turns you have. So, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 20, 21. So write that number down so when you go to put it back together it goes together somewhat where it was when you took it apart. And I'll take the outer tie rod end and count my turns. One, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. Got 21 turns, and that's just gonna get the alignment closer. You still need to have an alignment done. All right. Now slide this into the knuckle. Take the nut, and tighten the nut up. I'm gonna use my wrench on the nut. Use the socket on the stud, and just tighten this up. And now, you can torque this to 111-foot-pounds. There you go. All right. Now, we're gonna tighten up this jam nut. If you have the ability to use a torque wrench, you can tighten that to 46-foot-pounds. Take the wheel, put it on. Put the lug nuts on. And now, I'm gonna torque these lug nuts to 110-foot-pounds. And I'm gonna do that in a star pattern to tighten the wheel down evenly. And just go around again, double-check. Take the center cap, and tap it back on. Good to go.
Tools used
You want to keep in mind when you're doing this job after you're done you're going to want to go to a local garage and have the vehicle aligned so you don't have premature tire wear. Take the center cap off, just use a pry bar. You can use a rag underneath so you don't scratch anything. Use a 19-millimeter socket, take the lug nuts off, take the wheel off. Now, I want to take this lower ball joint nut off. You can use a 24-millimeter wrench or a 15/16th and loosen this up. And if the stud starts spinning, you can use an 11-millimeter wrench to hold the stud from spinning.
So my wrench isn't grabbing at the top anymore, so I can use some locking pliers on the threads below. I'm not re-using this ball joint, so if you're going to re-use the ball joint you don't want to do this. But just keep the stud from spinning, and if that's loose the plier is off, and slide it down. I'm going to use a pry bar, just slide the ball joint out of the knuckle. With that, just be careful and take this bolt out. Use a 21-millimeter socket. Slide that out. And I use an 18-millimeter wrench and there's two nuts on top, two bolts underneath here. Use a 15-millimeter socket and just grab the control arm.
And if you have to use a pry bar or just work it...walk it out. I'm going to use a bearing separator puller to try to get this off and just slide this on down below. Put these nuts on. Just going to set the tool up. I'm just going to use a little soapy water on this. It should be good. And I'm going to take this off. All right. Comes off pretty easy like that and just take a little more soapy water. Just spray the mount down and slide it over the new one, over the new arm.
Take a rubber mallet or dead blow hammer and hammer it on. And you want it about where it was when it came apart. Take the control arm, slide it in position. You can use a hammer to tap this in. Use, like, a rubber mallet or a dead blow. And line this up. All right. Line this front one out. If you need to use a screwdriver from the backside, get the bolt in. Line these bolt-holes up. Just use a Phillips head screwdriver. That's good. Slide the bolts through, put the nuts on top. We're going to torque these two bolts with the 18-millimeter wrench on top to 74-foot pounds.
And when you tighten this bolt down and torque it, you want this control arm as close to ride height as possible. It's recommended that you put everything back together, have the wheels on, and have the vehicle lowered down. But it's very hard to torque that bolt if the vehicle is down on the ground. If you had ramps, you could probably do it with ramps, but...but then, we're going to torque this bolt to 195-foot pounds.
Now, you can take a long pry bar and just slide this down. Trying to line the knuckle up. Just be careful, don't get your fingers near that. And just tighten this nut the same way you loosened it using the 11-millimeter wrench on top to prevent the stud from spinning and use the 15/16th wrench down below and tighten it up.
And if you have the ability to torque this nut, if you have a crow's foot, you want to torque that to 148-foot pounds. Put the wheel back on, the lug nuts on. Now, I'm going to torque the wheels to 110-foot pounds in a cross pattern, so I tighten the wheel down evenly. And just go around again, double-check. Center cap and line it up. Just tap it on.
