Miata Mailing List: April 1996, Message #47
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From: Sean Archer
Hi all! Thought I'd let you in on an ingenious way of replacing your shocks that requires no breaking of ball joints (sounds painful anyway), no changes to alignment, and is easier and faster than how the magazine suggests. Unfortunately, I can't take credit for the method. Bob, our Director at Large, has changed his shocks once and then his springs on his 95. The second time, he performed the entire operation in two hours by himself! His method I will describe to you. My Koni Shocks arrived last week from Imparts and cost $596 Canadian by the time they arrived. The Konis are three way adjustable (although you can really tune them anyway you want between soft and hard), have two ride height settings (stock and a little lower) and have a 12mm shaft, which means you need to drill out the stock cap and dust boot a couple of mm. We had a small drill press which made things pretty easy. On to the exciting part ... 1. Loosen the shaft's upper mounting bolt a few turns on each shock before working on anything else. It's a little tough getting this guy off once the spring/shock assembly is out of the car. (your car on jack stands with no wheels of course) 2. Disconnect the sway bar from the links on both sides so you can get it out of the way. 3. Remove the shock bolt in the lower A arm and push the shock back toward the inner A-arm to gain access to the lower ball joints vertical bolt. You may have to push down on the A-arm and put a screw driver through the shock bushing to hold it out of the way. 4. Remove the lower ball joints vertical bolt with a deep socket or extension. 5. Let the shock free again and remove the lower ball joints horizontal bolt. now you can pull the ball joint and hub carrier away from the A arm and voila! 6. Remove the two mounting bolts from the top and get your buddy to push down on the A arm with his foot while you remove the shock. Installation is reverse of removal and your done (I'm ignoring the sping compresser bit, you can figure that out yourself). The rears are much easier as there is just the sway bar and the shock bolt. It's kind of a pain to get at the top mounting bolts on the drivers side due to the gas tank filler pipes, but knuckle skin is only a temporary cover anyway when it comes to mechanics. The Konis lower the front of the car about 3/4" and 1/2" on the back (due to half shaft clearance), which gives you the added bonus of a little more negative camber - hmmm, so you do change your alignment, oh no! Another unique thing we did was to replace the plastic shock cap covers by drilling them out to 12mm and putting a small hole in the center or the adjustment tang. You can adjust the front shocks without removing the plastic cap. All that's left to do is wait for the snow to melt! Thanks to Bob for his great method. I wonder if the Mazda techs know this one ... Drive Careful Fast ... Sean N. Archer P.O. Box 61143 President, Kensington Postal Station CDN Rockies Chapter Calgary, Alberta Miata Club of America Canada T2N-4S6 1990 Mariner Blue Sebring Supercharged MX-5 Miata "MAX" (short for Maximum Headroom)