2000-05 Chevrolet Cavalier Pontiac Sunfire Front & Rear 4 Piece Complete Strut Assembly & Shock Absorber Kit TRQ SCA57080

Brought to you by 1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the Internet.

Hi, I'm Mike Green. I'm one of the owners of 1A Auto. I want to help you save time and money repairing or maintaining your vehicle. I'm going to use my 20-plus years experience restoring and repairing cars and trucks like this to show you the correct way to install parts from 1AAuto.com. The right parts installed correctly. That's going to save you time and money. Thank you and enjoy the video.

In this video, we're going to show you how to replace a loaded rear strut on this 1997 Pontiac Sunfire, same as any '95 to '05 Sunfire or Cavalier. The tools you'll need are some millimeter wrenches, 13, 19, and 10mm, and you'll need some sockets and extensions to make it easy to get in there, penetrating oil, and again, this is for a loaded strut. The struts we sell at 1A Auto have the springs and everything with them, so they're very easy for the do-it-yourselfer. You don't have to compress any springs or do any of that. If you buy a strut from somewhere else, and it doesn't have the spring, then you'll need a lot more tools, and it'll be quite a bit more difficult.

To do the rear strut, you want to start in the trunk here, and you pull down your insulation, and you can see right here, there is a 13-mm bolt or nut, I'm sorry, so you want to remove that nut. After removing that nut in the trunk, you're going to want to raise the car, secure it, and remove the rear wheel.

Now, actually from here, it's pretty easy. There's a 19mm bolt here. We're going to put a little penetrating oil on the end of it. These bolts are pretty well designed. This car, even though its age,155,000 miles and 13 years old, this bolt will still come out by hand. I do have the benefit of air ratchet here, and take that out. Then you kind of lift up on your carriage a little bit, the bolt comes out, and this drops down. You want to do these one at a time, and after that bottom one's done, there's two 10-mm bolts right up here. Then, I'm going to kind of hold onto it a little bit, and the strut comes right out.

You have the new strut from 1A Auto, exactly the same as the original. It's got the stud that goes up and you put the nut on, and everything will bolt in exactly the same. So, new strut goes up in. The stud will go into the hole. There it goes. I'm going to take one of my bolts, put it up in here and start it a little bit, so it's held in place. Start the other bolt. My big bolt, slide it in place. Just kind of shake things around a little bit. Start that. Tighten this bottom one up with the air wrench.

Use the air wrench up here again. I'm just making sure this is in place and get those started. Whoa, no way actually. Before we tighten those two up, we just check that stud. Make sure it's up through correctly, which it is. Now, we use our hand wrench and tighten these up. They should be probably about 35 foot-pounds. I'll just get them tight with this wrench. This lower bolt, we're going to tighten up to 55 foot-pounds.

Now, I'm just going to put the wheel back on. My wheel is back on, down on the ground. I'm going to torque my lug nuts to 75 foot-pounds, and we go in a star pattern. Now, I put on my lug nut covers. You just want to use your socket to tighten them by hand.

Now, here in the trunk, we're going to put our bolt back on. Not too tight. Push that back up into place, and you're all set.

Brought to you by 1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the Internet. Hi, I'm Mike Green. I'm one of the owners of 1A Auto. I want to help you save time and money repairing and maintaining your vehicle. I'm going to use my 20 plus years experiences restoring and repairing cars and trucks like this to show you the correct way to install parts from 1AAuto.com. The right parts installed correctly, that's going to save you time and money. Thank you and enjoy the video.

In this video we're going to show you how to replace a front strut on this 1997 Pontiac Sunfire. The process will be the same for any '95 to '05 Sunfire or Cavalier, and if you're looking at this with a different car, it's similar to really any front strut vehicle, just the size of the tools, and you might have a couple of clips or something attached to the strut you might have to remove. It's actually pretty amazing how easy this process is if I don't say so myself, as long as you but the loaded struts from 1A Auto. The tools you'll need are various millimeter sockets, plus jack and jack stands to raise and secure your car.

Okay, so the first step is to remove the wheel. Now you can see here I've raised it up on a lift and I have air tools. If you work with hand tools you want to have the car down on the ground and loosen everything up and then raise it and secure it with jack and jack stand, so now we'll take a wheel off. Okay, so next is you're going to loosen these two large bolts, okay. I'm going to show you both how to do it with hand tools and air tools. Okay, so I'm going to just use some penetrating oil and coat those bolts up real good.

Okay, so this is a 21 mm bolt and actually if you don't have metric sockets 13/16ths will just go on there. Ideally you want to have a nice big breaker bar like this. I'm going to show if you just have regular tools, if you just have a regular ratchet bar like this you can put it on there and pull away and see if that gets it loose. The other thing you can do is use a big regular wrench and put it on your ratchet bar. This actually gives you that much more leverage and then you pull nice and easy and get that bolt going and then you can just use your ratchet. Obviously the ideal way to do it is with the air tools.

Then there's two, there's one right here. Okay those are off. I've taken all the bolts off, now I've gotten a jack underneath the control arm, actually underneath the ball joint here. I'm supporting this. Now I'm going to spray these two studs here with some penetrating oil. These are 13 mm and it looks like I can just use a regular wrench and they'll come loose. Okay, but I'm going to use the magic of air tools. Okay, so we've got the bolts out. These are loose. I'm going to pound these bolts right out. Okay, here I've got my jack down and not really supporting the control arm anymore. That's the whole thing. That's the beauty of loaded struts. The whole strut comes out.

Okay, so here's our original strut and here's the new loaded strut from 1A Auto. You can see yes it's the same thing, just nice and shiny new. That's the beauty of these loaded struts. It's five bolts. Take the old one out. Put the new one in and bolt it back in. You don't have to compress any springs. You don't have to do any of that. You pay a little more for the strut but it's just an easy job. Okay, so we're going to put this back in. Now you might be wondering why aren't you putting that nice new strut in, well; because, actually these struts aren't bad, so we're not going to be a new strut in the car, but I'm going to show you how to put them in anyways.

Okay, so basically put it back up in just like you brought it out. Okay, then start the nut on top to hold it and you want the two studs towards the inside of the care. Okay and then back down here you take the strut and you push the steering linkage and strut back in. You take one of your big bolts, but you start from the back side of the car and you basically have to kind of shift things around a little bit to get things started. Okay, you're going to tap the back side with a hammer to get it seated, okay. You put the big bolts back on. Okay and then up here put your other nut on and then what you want to do, I'm going to jack up the whole assembly so that it pushes it up into place and I can put this last bolt in.

Okay, now I'm going to tighten the top ones up. Okay, now you want to use a torque wrench. These top ones you want to set to 35 foot pounds. After I got the top all bolted together and torqued down. I'm going to tighten these up a little bit with the torque wrench, I mean with the air wrench. Okay, now I've got my torque wrench set to 95 foot pounds. Okay and there you go. Now we can put the tire back on and we're all done. It's a good possibility depending on where you are with your car, you may want to get an alignment after you replace the struts; because, the replacement could knock the car out of alignment a little bit. Okay, so my lug nuts of there and tightened up a little bit. Now I'm going to tighten them to 75 foot pounds and I use a star pattern. I put the lug nut covers on and just use my socket and by hand just tighten them up.

We hope this helps you out. Brought to you by www.1AAuto.com your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the Internet. Please feel free to call us toll free 888-844-3393. We're the company that's with you on the Internet and in person.

Brought to you by www.1AAuto.com. Your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the internet. Hi, I'm Don from 1AAuto. I hope this How to Video helps you out, and the next time you need a part for your vehicle, this of 1AAuto.com. Thanks.

In this video, we're going to show you how to replace a rear strut on a 2007 Chevy Cavalier. The same procedure from the left side to the right side. As well as many of the model years of the Chevy Cavalier. In order to do this repair, you're going to need a Jack and Jack Stands 19,18,13, and 10 mm sockets, socket wrench, and an extension, and a long screwdriver or pry bar.

Pop your trunk and we're going to do the right side in this video. Pull down the carpet right below the trunk hinge there, and you're going to find a 13 mm nut on a post. We're going to go ahead and remove that nut. I'm going to use a 13 mm socket and socket wrench to go ahead and do this. I'm going to fast forward as I take that nut off. You want to remove the hubcap with a 19 mm socket. If you don't have air tools, loosen the lug nuts before you raise the vehicle. Once you have the lug nuts loose, raise and support the vehicle and remove the wheel and tire. The wheel off, you'll see on the back side there the lower part of the strut. There's an 18 mm bolt that we're going to need to take out. We're going to go ahead and spray it down with some penetrating oil. Make the job a little easier for us.

I'm using an 18 mm socket on a socket wrench, and I'm going to use a pipe to go over the handle of the socket wrench. Give me a little bit more leverage to break that free. Once I've got it free, I'll take the pipe off to be able to swing the wrench a little bit easier. I'm going to go ahead and fast forward as I take that bolt out. Up inside the wheel well on top of the strut assembly, you're going to find two 10 mm bolts. We're going to need to take those out with a 10 mm socket, socket wrench, and extension. I'm going to go ahead and fast forward as I do that. Take that last bolt out. There you go. Let it drop. Apply a little pressure to the break drum there and pull the strut assembly out. Here's a side by side of the old part and the new part from 1AAuto. An exact fit replacement part.

Going back in is a reversal of the process of taking it out. We're going to apply a little downward pressure on that suspension there. Feed the single post that had the 13 mm nut in the truck compartment up through its hole. Then start threading on your 10 mm bolts that go in through there. Get those tightened up. We need to align the bottom of the strut so it fits into the suspension. I'm using a long flatted screwdriver just too kind of pry it so it gets in there straight. Once that's done, we can go ahead and put that 18 mm bolt back through. Use your 18 mm socket, socket wrench and tighten that back up. Torque the 18 mm bolts about 85 ft.-lbs. Back inside the trunk, install that 13 mm nut on top of the post on the top of the strut assembly. I'll go ahead and fast forward as I do that. Reinstall your wheel and tighten down your five lug nuts. I'll fast forward as I do that. Now, go ahead and torque the five lug nuts to 100 ft.-lbs. in a star pattern. Then, reinstall your hubcap by aligning the hole in it for the valve stem on your tire. Then, tighten them up by hand with your 19 mm socket.

We hope this helps you out. Brought to you by www.1AAuto.com. Your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the internet. Please feel free to call us toll free 888-844-3393. We're the company that's good for you on the internet and in person.