I believe I can access and remove my strut rods to replace bushings in place van on the ground.it appears there is no load on these rods but wanted to check if anyone sees a problem doing it this way. Seems to easy.
Thanks

 

Strut rods locate the control arm front/rear. If you remove the rod with weight on the control arm, it may shift, and I suspect you won't like the results......

 

Got it- not about up down load but shift horizontal.
Haynes says jack the side your working on up and remove wheel and tire. Does that sound right? (W/safe jacking and jack stands)
would you also support base of lower control arm (but lift van from frame)
thank you

 

Correct.

Yeah, that seems reasonable, easier to work on with tire out of the way. Putting a jack stand under the control arm itself, with just a BIT of weight on it probably wouldn't be a bad plan either. I think before I see it on anything, I would measure it out, so you know where it needs to be front/rear when you install the new strut. Maybe from some point on the front of the wheel opening, to the center of the hub, to somewhere on the rear of the wheel opening?

 

You will need a pinch bar to align the two bolt holes at the front of the strut rod. You won't have the bushings fully compressed when you put in the bolts so it will take a bit of work and as stated above it could easily change your alignment.

 

I don't quite understand. If I jack one side up by frame, remove wheel and tire and then lightly jack the lower control arm enough to keep it from moving should I not then be able to unbolt the strut rod, pull it out, stick my new OEM bushings on and have an easy time dropping it back in and tightening the bolts?
And if my original and OEM front bushings are the same size shouldn't my alignment be OK? I will bet I have this wrong but Haynes doesn't talk about alignment after swap and either does the factory manual.

 

Your old bushings are likely crushed and the last alignment you had done was with those old bushings in there. You'll see the difference once the old ones are out.
when I did mine a handful of years ago the driver side was a breeze, just a small pull forward on the control arm to line up n drop in the bolts. Passenger side was quite different. with the new bushings in I had some prying and pulling to get the holes to iine up, it took me a good while being it was my first time. With as much new forward movement and pressure on the lca that the new bushings added, I'd say yes an alignment is a good idea.
Hope your replacement does go easy but I'd consider scheduling the alignment soon after

Adding this after the original response... As I recall now, I had replaced most everything up front except the lower control arm bushings. Took it in for new tires and an alignment. In time I had discovered these strut rod bushings reading here in the forum. I could also spin the washers and had noticed some funny knocking sort of noises for some time.
I had wondered why the heck the alignment shop had not pointed this out to me...

 

The strut bar positions your lower ball joint to some extent so it will change the position of the ball joint if the length changes. You are putting in new bushings which may compress differently than the old ones so it's worth taking a measurement. The good news is you will do both sides at the same time so perhaps it won't really matter.

 

Thanks JFloor and SteveR.
Got it with that last info

 

I'm about to put new in new strut rod bushings, it looks like easy access to the one bolt. My question is, once I get that bolt off, how hard is it to get the rod out of that bracket to take off the old bushings and put on the new ones? Any tips/tricks/advice would be great.