Well I had a little knock-knock when going slowly over bumps, checked everything out, and my front UBJ had about a 1/4 of play.

My ball joint press is a c-clamp version that I got from Harbor Freight, I've used it on 3 ball joints now (2 were on a buddy's car) and it seems to be holding up fine. I got it for $30, but it's on sale for $20 right now if you want to check it out: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=38335 That's the basic kit, they have some more with different attachments that go up to $60.

What kinda sucks about changing the UBJ is that unless you have a skinny coilover system that you can maybe work around, you have to pull the spring/shock assembly to get the upper arm off to be able to press out the UBJ. Not a big deal, just adds a few minutes. It's nice if you have a vise to put the c-clamp in to hold everything steady, press out the old one, press in the new one. Sometimes the Harbor Freight press doesn't adapt perfectly, depending on what you are pressing. When I did a buddy's LBJ on his 5th gen with the hub-over-rotor design, I didn't want to mess with removing the hub and the rotor from the knuckle, so I kinda had to improvise using a flat prybar and two large sockets lol. Ghetto yes, but effective and cheap. I can't remember if I had to ghetto anything on the upper arm, I think it went smooth with just the parts that come with the press.

Let me know if you end up getting the lower arms. I'll probably leave mine for now. Luckily I saved my OEM upper arms, I'm a packrat like that. So if I do end up going with the lower arms I should be okay on the top ones.

The ball joint release tool I got from Napa for about $20. It doesn't have the adjustable pivot like the one pictured in the Helms manual, but it's worked fine so far. My buddy broke it while using it once, but he was using an imact wrench and there was no lube on the threads. He bought me a new one, and I've used it a lot since, with some grease on the threads with hand tools, and it's worked great.

Mine:

 

I'll let you know this week, my ball joints have yet to leak in the rear so I should have a bit of time left. But I may be buying the Ingalls kit and stuff soon, and I may do the install myself in the garage. I'll take pics if I do.

Me, suspensions and rusty bolt haven't been friends so I'm leary of the garage project but we shall see.

I also need to call Eibach about the kit this week too....see what they say as well.

 

this is funny, I called Tirerack to get my invoice for my Eibach kit, I then called Eibach to get some info on this kit's warranty.

Eibach in tern gave me the number for SPC to get a new camber kit perhaps under warranty. Well I mentioned to Eibach that perhaps, they should do some investigating with SPC for this issue.

Ok, well...off to call SPC now, this is funny.

-Chad

Edit:
Well, Schmiddy SPC is sending me yet another kit just like they did for you.
How do your new SPC parts look so far?

I find this amussing, I called the Tirerack, to call Eibach, to call SPC about my camber kit. Wow, glad I paided the full Eibach price for the SPC kit. At least the tirerack had my invoice on file mine was lost long ago. Tirerack rules

So in the end, had I not purchased an Eibach kit form Tirerack I may not have had proof of purchase of an SPC kit.

 

So it sounds like you all are going to get the ingalls kit. All there is for the 7th gen is the upper one. You could probably allign the car yourself in the rear with a bubble level temperarily. I did this with my mustang and was right on. I put the bubble level on the lip of the rim with someone sitting in the car for weight issues and was right on when I went to the allignment shop. They didnt even charge me for looking at it.

 

Well I eyeballed my camber as well and it wasn't changed when I got an alignment for the first time. The reason I said that in theory you should get an alignment is because that by changing these bars and adjusting them, you can in theory change the toe setting. Not that you will, but it's possible.

That's a good idea with the bubble though.

 

Ingalls has one for the Accord 7th gen don't they? Because my buddy with the TSX used a 7th gen Accord kit for his TSX, they didn't have a TSX kit.

Well, I'm going to try the Eibach-SPC replacement kit. If it fails, after spc said they fixed it I will then re-install my OE upper arms, then I will install the lower ingalls kit.(my dad the packrat has them--lucky me; I'm way too old for my dad to be saving my @$$ j/k)

But at this point the re-install of the new and improved? SPC kit is the cheapest way to go and worth trying. But I'm not ruling out the Ingalls kits down the road.

Although I'm ticked Eibach didn't even bother making an Accord kit. Eibach said this was one of the few kits they have made by SPC, how can we be sure? I mean I ordered the Eibach kit for the Eibach kit, not an SPC kit with the Eibach name? And it still took them about 3 years to market even this kit, what a crock. Oh well, I have a new kit on the way, lucky me. If we learned anything, it's that tirerack has a fantastic invoice system and customer service dept.

 

Yeah but don't we have some rear negative camber in our cars, even by factory standards? The rear wheels always look canted a bit. So would the bubble still work.

Your toe will always be out of spec some, unless you get the ingalls kit you can't truely adjust the toe, it is what it is. But in theory toe shouldn't change with travel too much, that's why we have toe arm, right?

Hey and for preloading the upper spc bar before we set the torque for the frame bolts, can't you use the jack to raise the rear suspension (via the hub) with the tire off and the car on the stands, then torque the system to spec?

 

Yeah, there is some negative camber stock, -0.5 to -1.0 is the factory spec range. But I just meant that you could use the bubble to compare left and right to make them even, not 0. My buddy had some camber instruments that were pretty sweet, you would hang it on the lip of the wheel, contacted the top and bottom of the wheel and would give a digital readout. I think he borrowed them from T.C. Kline. You just had to make sure you were on a level surface to get an accurate reading.

There actually IS a factory rear toe adjustment, but yeah, I don't think it's going to change too much when changing the upper arm.

That's a good idea about jacking up the hub to avoid preload. If you took a measurement of fender to hub center before you jacked up the car and removed the wheel, you could get it pretty dead on. I guess I wasn't worried about it enough to think up something like that. h: See...you're the engineer, I'm just a dentist.

 

Yeah well, we knew you had to be a dentist because I think you wash and clean your car with a tooth brush daily. I don't drive mine and your engine bay is always cleaner then mine.

If you get grass roots racing they sell some nice cheapy DIY camber and alignment tools in the back. I'm sure Syclone being into Auto-x'er has some home brew Alignment tricks that get the job done.

And update your Avatar with your new local fool.