Ok. Here is my review of the Strutmasters Air to coil spring conversion kit.
I received the Strutmasters air to spring conversion kit Friday night. I got up bright and early on Saturday morning about 10, ate, and went outside.
I started lifting the car. Promptly blew the seals clean outta my old floor jack. I cussed, fluently. Then I figured that "I'M DIVORCED! No one can tell me not to go buy tools now."
So I went and got a jack and two new stands from Sears as a kit for 39 bucks. I didn't really need the stands, but you can never have too many.
I returned to the driveway. Lifted the car, put it on 4 stands, and removed the wheels. I then noticed that the driver’s front air spring was not like the other three. It turns out it was a new Arnott spring and ride height sensor. I noted to myself not to tear that up, one of you guys might want/need it.
I removed the front brakes. I followed the procedure to remove the struts. First snag, doing this by hand sucks. I should build a garage, install a floor lift, and get a compressor and air tools. We ended up using a four way tire tool to remove some of these bolts.
Removing the air springs was no problem. Be patient, if you haven’t taken this apart before, it’s not that difficult. The provided instructions weren’t that clear on the metal clips on the solenoids. I then went to the back, did the same. It took far longer to break the bolts loose and take this all apart than I expected. The original struts and shocks were still there. I don’t think this had ever been apart in the years the car was running around. The rest of the car was so well maintained that I just assumed the struts and shocks were also. Wrong.
We got the car back together and on the ground in about an hour. That was after about 5 hours of taking it apart. We had to wait for about 45 minutes while a buddy took the old struts to his shop to impact the mounting hardware off the top of them. Thanks, Bob!
The passenger side front sway bar connector BROKE when i took it apart, so i left it unhooked and zip tied it out of the way. I went and got new connectors. Even more pain in the ass parts running.
The three old air bags were firestone bags with a date of 1991 on them. This probably meant OEM, we figure. So they did, in fact, last quite a while. They were dry rotted and cracked at the fold pretty badly and the passenger side bag leaked when you put soapy water on it. (The compressor failed, the other two ride height sensors were bad, and something else was wrong with the suspension, anyway. And since I’m paranoid about breakage on long trips, you can’t beat the reliability of the coil spring.)
I removed the ride height sensors while I had the suspension apart. They were useless to me now and would be something else to become an annoying rattle.
We got the new suspension all together, and got the car back on the ground. Looking at the car right after it was sitting on all four wheels, I almost passed out. It was sitting at the maximum extension of the suspension. Holy :q:q:q:q, a four wheel drive mark 7.
I ran around the yard and cussed a lot.
Then i remembered when I put new springs in my 79 Trans-am. Oh yes, they must settle and find themselves.
So I then bounced the car some and we went in and got cleaned up and ate dinner. My buddy Monty (without whom I could not have completed this project) and I decided to get fuel. Upon walking outside I noticed that the car had indeed settled down some and we went and filled it up with fuel, at 3.15 a gallon for premium.
Since I hadn't actually gotten the car aligned, we just marked the strut towers and put the struts back in the same position. I'm sure it's not aligned correctly, but it doesn't feel bad to drive. We took it around town a little bit and it was a very smooth and quiet ride. I was somewhat disturbed to not hear the air compressor. Oh yes, good bye noisy rattle device..
After a quick break in drive we parked it. I was very impressed, however, I was taking that with a grain of salt due to the fact I usually get impressed after I spend money. Then I get disappointed and pissed if the project doesn’t work to expectation. The car handles quite a bit better. After I get it aligned fully I'll take it out and thrash it a bit and see what my new mph is in some of the corners that I frequent.
This evening, my girlfriend and I went for a cruise down Illinois 100. Yeah i know, it’s still not aligned but I did far too much work to the car to wait for the alignment shop to get me in by midweek.
The springs have settled nicely, the car looks very good, very aggressive stance. It is about 3/4ths of an inch below what Lincoln says the ride height should be. The ride is stiffer than the air was, but I feel far more connected to the road. I think a lot of this could be the new struts and shocks. However, it corners harder than a friend of mine’s Mark VII that has a full Ford replacement air suspension under it, and doesn’t jolt or bound on the rough roads here. It’s very quiet, and I don’t miss the intermittent buzz of the compressor.
All in all, I’m very impressed so far with this kit, and I do feel satisfied in my decision to replace the air spring system with coils.
If anyone has questions either post here or pm me.
