Front Suspension Maintenance

This morning, put the Mustang up on jacks and removed the front two tires.  I started by cleaning up the suspension parts a little as they had grease and grime on them from the road trip to Tulsa.  Afterwards, I moved on to the bulk of the work which was checking the torque of everything and greasing all the joints.

I removed all the cotter pins, removed, and then torqued all the steering pieces again just to make sure they are done right.  There was a torn tie rod boot on the inner, driver-side tie rod which connects to the center link.  Luckily, I purchased a set of Scott Drake tie rod boots years ago and didn't use them.  Since I had a pack of two, I swapped both the inner tie rod boots out.

I found the bolts which hold the strut rods to the lower control arms were not torqued well.  The rest of the bolts seems to be just fine although there were a few I put a slight bit of a turn on with the wrench.  I figured now that I've driven it a fair amount it is best to make sure all is well.

I then purchased some Ford/Lincoln/Mercury grease at NAPA and pumped grease into all of the zerk fittings.  Several took much more grease than I was expecting.  Unfortunately, I found the boot on the driver side upper control arm must have a pin hole as it leaks grease out the side.  If I replace the front springs, that would be a good opportunity to fix that if I decide it is bothersome.  The part is a Moog K8142 and it is only about $20 on Amazon.

Since I had everything out, I thought I'd top off the steering box with grease.  I checked StangerSite.com and followed his instructions to turn the wheel to the right, remove the fill bolt, remove the bolt farthest from the fill hole.  I then stuck the end of the grease gun in the hole and filled until grease came out the bolt hole.  Wildly, I pumped 120 times before grease came out the bolt hole.

The website also indicates you then turn the wheel to the left and then fill again.  This time I was only able to pump the grease gun four times before grease came out of the bolt hole.  I tightened everything up and called the job done.

What is weird about the steering box is for it to take 124 pumps of grease it must have been quite low.  The steering box has 4,000 miles on it since being rebuilt in late 2011 by Stanger (Randy Meyer).  As part of the process, he fills it up and you do nothing but install it.  This makes me think he must have sent it without much in it.  Thing is, it is hard to tell as when you take off the fill plug, you can see grease as the gears push the grease to the sides of the box so I always thought it was full.  

I drove around and really did not notice a great deal of difference in the steering.  I won't sweat it and just consider the maintenance done and move on.