[tbm3fan]

Going to work on my 2004 front suspension in a week or so as soon as Rock Auto sends out the correct driver's LCA. Prepping in the Ford manual I see that bolts 1 & 3 as they put it, the LCA bolts, are torque to yield. Is that true and yet no LCA comes with those particular bolts. Not even in the Ford site www.horizonpartsguy.com. I just finished the front suspension on a 91 626 and 98 Sable wagon and there are no torque to yield bolts. Oh, and while at it the manual says a new tie rod end nut as I see there is no conventional cotter pin. No wonder this Focus is the last car I will own that has been built after 2004.

 

[sailor]

I'll move this to the suspension area, there are old threads in there that mention re-use specs. for the front bolts (the only ones to worry about at all).

Ones on installing a brace between the front mounting points for example.

Haven't heard of any issues, but it never hurts to be cautious.

 

[amc49]

Ford has called for replacement of lots of front end bolts for many years as they worry about lawsuit issues and to sell more dealer parts. Even bolts that are not TTY. All self locking for instance even if they can often be used over with no issues at all. They consider critical bolts as one time use only.

The bolt is not TTY unless the final torque spec is in an angle rather than a torque reading. You can't really read torque on TTY, the bolt is pulling in two at that point and the torque has stopped increasing.

 

[tbm3fan]

Well the final torque spec for the front bolt is 90 degrees and for the inboard back one it is another 60 degrees. However, what is the point if you can't get them. I order all my OEM parts, whether for the 1965 truck or 1998 Sable if still current, from Horizon Ford. They do not list the hardware as being available while listing all the individual parts from struts, to springs, to links and to control arms. Actually no one lists them anywhere I checked.

As an aside the 1998 Ford manual for Sable/Taurus has no TTY bolts in the front suspension.

 

[polygon]

It seems to me that those bolts could be deformed, been angle tightened in the plastic region. I will be very cautious about reusing them, especially where dynamic loads are involved.

The image below are the LCA specs for a Euro '04 model so I don't know to what extent yours is different. The part nos. for bolts HB1, HB3 & HB5 are 1382622, 1471996 and 1471998 respectively and are available at this UK outlet as follows -

http://www.allcarpartsfast.co.uk/ford/1382622-bolt-hex-head/
http://www.allcarpartsfast.co.uk/ford/1471996-bolt/
http://www.allcarpartsfast.co.uk/ford/1471998-bolt/

Hope this helps. Good Luck.

 

[amc49]

They may well be 'unitized' into the bigger LCA assemblies now, Ford is famous for doing that now. Can't wait to have to buy entire engine to get some spark plugs.............you can tell by looking over the shoulder of the parts guy, the picced part counter layouts clearly mark the smaller parts as being part of a subassembly if that is so. Used to be if the small part # was in red it was one of those IIRC.

I don't care for TTY on suspension parts anyway, if bolt is not a wonky shouldered type and hard to imitate then I use simple grade 8 or property class 10.9 replacements if I need them and they'll work.

They give all this crap about how TTY bolts do so many things others don't but I just don't see it, to me an industry attempt to force you to buy more overpriced OEM parts.

 

[tbm3fan]

Got directed to fordparts.com by a local dealer and found the correct diagram with all the parts. To buy 6 LCA bolts, 6 LCA nuts and 2 tie rod nuts the total cost is 156.88. The nut that goes with the bolt, on the front position of the LCA, is $24 a piece. The bolt that goes inboard on the rear bracket of the LCA is $21.22 a piece. Those account for $90 of the total. Can one spell outrageous! Oh, and I haven't checked shipping yet.

 

[polygon]

Wow, what are they made of ? Precious metal ? I would be tempted to take amc49's advice. It's just I don't know how much extra torque would be needed instead of the angle tightening if you don't use TTY bolts.

 

[felixthecat]

I've reused those bolts & I have no issues. Go to a dealer to replace the clutch on a dtech & see what tech replaces those bolts when they drop the cradle.

 

[tbm3fan]

I know how the aftermarket guys handle the issue about the lock nut on the outer tie rod. They don't as they use a standard castellated nut with a cotter pin. What will they think of next? Much better than the $10.40 nut from Ford. So I ordered Moog outer tie rods that can be greased and I can now disconnect them anytime I want over the years. Since I already grease 5 older cars what is another one to work on.

 

[tbm3fan]

I would imagine one could use a grade 8 bolt up front if you can achieve the final torque of 125-170 ft.lb. Interesting in that a similar bolt in the front LCA of a Sable/Taurus is a final torque of 75-92 ft. lb. The out board rear bolt is 88 ft. lb. while the inboard one's final torque is around 95 ft. lb. taking into account that 60 degree turn. Why different I have no clue.

 

[emsvitil]

I've used jam nuts on tie-rods when I can't get the castellated nut and cotter pin......

 

[polygon]

The torque settings below are from a Haynes manual for Euro Focus '05 to '09 with engines up to 2L. As you can see, there's no angle torqueing there so the values might be a good substitute for your application. The only prescription is to use new bolts on those items marked with an *. As for the nuts, we use Nyloc nuts over here - haven't seen castle nuts and cotter pins for years !

Hope this helps.

 

[felixthecat]

I reused the oem bolts when I installed my cfm arms & changed out the nylock nuts w/ a couple of jam nuts to make it easier to tear down if I had too. I also reused the cradle bolts when I installed a torsen yrs ago w/ no issues. The only bolt I changed out was the crank pulley bolt when I installed cfm's udp's.