Welcome to Black Ice's technical page. This site is dedicated to the installation of a BLACK ICE SPECIAL Coil spring conversion kit sold by American Air Suspension

Below is a picture of my 1994 Lincoln Mark VIII. This is the vehicle I chose to install the
BLACK ICE SPECIAL conversion kit on.

Now, down to the task at hand

First, turn off the AIR RIDE SWITCH located on the driver's side of the trunk. Next, lift the vehicle. If using a hoist, be sure to use the proper lift points. Before lifting the vehicle, you may wish to measure your vehicle's current ride height, both front and rear, and make a note of it. The proper way to measure the ride height is from the bottom of the wheel lip, to the top of the fender opening.

Remove all 4 wheels, and place them out of the way. Now is a good time to spray penetrant on all of the bolts/nuts you are going to remove. This is especially important if your car's suspension has been exposed to the harsh elements of winter driving.

Here are the FACTORY TORQUE SPECIFICATIONS for the following suspension work:

FRONT TORQUE SPECS FOR THIS JOB:
(from Ford CD-ROM service manual)
Lower strut to control arm nut= 118-162 lb/ft
upper shock mount to body-nuts= 17-22 lb/ft
swaybar end link to spindle= 39-53 lb/ft

REAR TORQUE SPECS FOR THIS JOB
(from Ford CD-ROM service manual)
swaybar end link to lower control arm= 7.5-10.2 lb/ft
lower rear shock bolt/nut to lower control arm= 83-113 lb/ft

We will do the FRONT first.
HINT Do one side at a time, so you will have the other side as a visual reference incase you get stuck during re-assembly!

Lower the car, and in the engine bay, remove the black plastic cover over the top of the front shock bolts.
These are held on by push-in clips that use a philips head plastic screw down the center. Hold the base of the push-in clip while un-screwing the philips screw.
Remove the black plastic cover to reveal the nuts holding the top of the air spring housing to the shock tower.
There are 3 threaded studs, one of which on the passenger side, is double nutted to hold a bracket for the A/C lines. Remove all of the nuts, except the one closest to the engine. These use a 13mm socket. The driver's side has the EDIS module(97-98 may not) held in place with 2 8mm bolts. Remove these first, and maneuver this module out of the way.

Next we will work down below.
Locate the air spring solenoid. It is located on the forward side of the front air spring. There is a silver safety clip that must be removed first. Using a small screw driver, open the clip and remove it.
Once the clip is removed, you will be able to rotate the solenoid to release the air. Dont be alarmed. The air will rush out quickly. This is normal. Once the air has stopped(2-3 seconds) lift back the inner fender cover and neatly cut the air line, and un-plug/remove the solenoid from the car. Next, release the top of the ride height sensor from its mount on the upper control arm by pulling back the small metal locking tab. The ride height sensor is held on by ball-studs. Pulling back on the metal tab will release it from the ball-stud. Do the same for the bottom part of the ride height sensor.

Peel back the inner fender cover, unplug the sensor, and remove it from the car. Now you will need to use a jack stand to support the bottom of the steering knuckle where it joins the lower control arm. I used a 3rd man jack since I was using a lift. Remove the ABS sensor from its retaining clip position. It has a small grommet that slides into a groove.