97 Camaro SS

Hey guys, so here's what was planned for today. Install Koni shocks front, Bilstien's in the rear, front rotors and pads all the way around. Simple, right? No...here's what happened:

Took hours lounger than it should have just because I have never done the suspension on a Camaro before.

Top bolts rusted on the top of the shock on L/R sides. Took 2 hours to find someone who was able to cut them off.

Once the fronts were done, found when I bounced the car, the right side has a noise. We think it's probably the top nut that isn't tight enough.

When we were bleeding the brakes with a vacuum bleeder, we found that the front left caliper is leaking where the brake line attaches.

When I put the brake line back on the caliper, it was turned a little causing it to hit the lip of the caliper. Maybe this screwed something up.



MY QUESTIONS:

As far as the brake lines go. Are there supposed to be two copper washers? One on each side of the brake line fitting? I only have one. This could also be the problem.

And with that top nut. First of all, what's an easy way to get to it in the least amount of time/effort? Do we really have to take the whole assembly off the car again? And also, how do you keep the shaft from rotating? When we tried to tighten down the nut, the whole mess turned. We used a cresent wrench to hold the shaft and used an open end wrench to turn the nut. I guess this didn't work that well. Will an impact wrench work?



The car is stuck at a friend of mine's house right now. We spent a grand total of about 12 hours with everything. We're going back there tomorrow to at least get the brakes figured out so we can drive it. I have never spent so much time with so many problems.

If anyone could help, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks,
Steve

RE AND CHERYL

Yes, there should be a brass washer on both sides on the brake line fitting.

When replacing struts I normally use an impact to zap it on. Using a ratchet usually results in the shaft spinning. Many struts have a hole for a alen head wrentch in the top end. Use it to hold the shaft still while you tighten it with a wrench. If the top nut is accesable from the engine compartment you don't have to pull the strut (think it is, can't remember).

Sounds like you had a day from hell. Tomorrow willbe better.

LT1Squirrel

you just gotta see it has after all this your car will handle, look, and stop better
free bump for ya

shoebox

You can't get to the top nut on the shock without removing the assembly.

97 Camaro SS

OK, thanks guys. I'll pick up a couple of washers and hopefully that'll solve my problem. And as far as the struts, I'll just pull them off again with the help of my roomate and take it to Discount Tire or something that's accross the street and have them zap it real quick.

Thanks guys for the help. I'll let you guys know how everything turns out.

Thanks again,
Steve

97 Camaro SS

Well, the car is sitting for another night. Here's the deal. I got a copper washer and I think that sealed the brake line. But guess what, the bleeder screw is leaking. I couldn't believe it. I have no idea what happened. I never touched the bleeder screw. So we switched the LF bleeder with the RF and found that it was just one screw that was bad and not the caliper. So we went driving around looking for another one on a Sunday and of course nobody had one. Went back and messed with it some more and then found that we couldn't get either the left bleeder or the right one to seal. I just can't believe this. I've done a lot of brakes and a lot of brake and bleeding and have never ran into this problem.

I'm going to guess that maybe the bleeders were over tightened by whoever last did it (probably a shop) and maybe that damaged them. I'm just praying that it's not the caliper that's bad.

Tomorrow I'll see if Chevy has them in stock and I'll see if I can't figure this out.

Steve