New 2000 Focus SE Wagon Owner
Hello Focus Fanatics!
Honestly, I'm not a fanatic of the Focus. I purchased a 2000 SE wagon about a month ago for the fuel economy. After purchasing it and taking it out for its second voyage, the driver's side rear end starting clunking on turns. I jacked it up to take a look and wouldn't you know, the whole rear end assembly is completely rusted through and literally falling apart (Thank you Maine!). The rear sway bar tore away from the cross member and the driver's side upper control arm mount is about to go as well. I did some searching online and found a thread from one of the members here and decided to register to get some tips and hints on maintenance and other issues concerning the Focus. I am trying to get all of the old parts off of the wagon, but I'm running into issues with rusted bolts, etc. Hopefully my new air compressor and impact wrench will solve this problem, but I haven't had the time to give them a try. Any advice on tearing out the rear end assembly would be greatly appreciated. So far I have the passenger side coil spring out and some of the control arms have been loosened. I'm running into problems with the bolts on the lower rear control arms. My plan is to leave the trailing arm in place along with the hubs and then squeeze the rear cross member with everything attached out of the bottom. I really don't want to mess with taking the brake lines loose or anything like that. I hate bleeding brakes. Anyways, so far I have collected an expensive array of new parts such as a new cross member, new rear lower control arms, new front lower control arms, and new sway bar bushings. I have a set of upper control arms on order and I plan on getting new hubs, trailing arm bushings, and sway bar links. Basically a complete rebuild of the rear end.
Thanks for this site and I'm sure I will be browsing it to find information on maintaining my new money pit.
Travis