do you really need to take off the front caliper to removce the front strut?
shop manual says disconnect brake hose bracket , hanes manual says remove caliper and hang. Is there any better way?

 

I beleive i replaced both of my struts with a wrench, a socket wrench, and didn't remove anything other than the brake hose bracket which is actually bolted to the shock housing, so i didn't have to do anything. Do support the a-arm though with a jack or the spring will drop out, not to mention with a jack, it makes it really simple to raise or lower it right into the shock. It's been over a year since i was up there, so do not quote me, others will chime in.

Actually, now that i've thought about it for a minute, i didn't remove anything other than what i said above because i have a good feeling i'm going to have to cut my calipers off this winter to do my brake job because of rust, so i'm 99% positive i got them swapped without removing the brakes.

 

Depends on how the hardware is installed, if the heads of the bolts are facing outward tward the caliper then they'll need to come off.

 

Guess i got really lucky, huh? But i do concur, this condition would make you take the brakes apart.

 

Thanks for the info about the spring dropping out. It looks like the bolts pull out of the inside for the strut so I'll be able to do it like you did. Also, right now I don't think I'll have to remove the tire, but I suppose that does make for extra weight on the contol arm.

 

wow, I would certainly take the tire off...easy to do and a lot more room.

 

wow really? all this time i've been doing it the hard way