Toyota Previa 91 - 97

Photos of My 95 Previas

2008-04-15T18:32:00.002-04:00

How to replace sway bar links on 95 Previa

2008-04-14T13:44:00.020-04:00

How to replace sway bar links on a Previa Van

(The sway bay links are dogbone shaped metal pieces with ball joints at both ends)

Disclaimer: I am neither a certified mechanic nor a mechanic for that matter. I am an IT professional by profession with a can do attitude. I believe you can do anything if you put your heart in to it, but I have another reason for fixing my car(s) myself and that’s the high cost of repair from our beloved dealership or even a local workshops. Please don’t get me wrong I understand for certain type of repairs I will use my dealer or a local mechanic, but for things like these we all should be able to get the job done and save hundreds (E.g. my Toyota dealer gave me an estimate of $465.00 to replace the front sway bar links on my 95 Previa and a $503.00 just to clean not even replace the EGR valve to fix the “Check Engine light”. This ridicules price estimate was enough motivation/reason for me to do this work myself. So please consider these words before following my instructions and working on your car yourself.

Tools required for this opration:

Car Jack (Standard that come with your car would work fine)
Jack Stands (You can buy these for under $40 at a local parts store)
HEX KEY Set
14mm wrench (double check the size on your van)
15mm socket
The handy-dandy WD40

NOTE: The whole opration took me 3 hours and cost me $56 (new sway bars)+$3.99 (socket)+$35 (Jack stands) = $94.99. I saved $370.01 over the estimate given by the Toyota Dealer.

Challenges and recommendations before you start working on your car:

The biggest challenge was to remove the old sway bars due to rust (You can overcome this by using a penetrating oil on the nuts a day)
Since I believe the old sway bars were the original, they were tightened using a compression tool gun and were really hard to unscrew even after I used the penetrating oil as well as WD40. I sprained my neck muscles while opening these suckers and at one point I doubted my capabilities

(Let's Began)

Jack and properly support the front of the vehicle on jack stands and make sure you put something (brick or a block of wood behind/front of the rear tires to make sure the van doesn't move during this opration.

Remove both front tires to access the swar bars

Spray penetrating oil on all link nuts, using caution to avoid getting overspray on brakes.

Remove both nuts from the link by holding the hex portion of the stud using a hex KEY, while removing the nut with a BOX KEY

Insert the new link and torque nuts to 30 ft-lbs. Repeat on other side if replacing both links

I hope this was helpful to you all

Thanks

2008-04-13T01:28:00.054-04:00

How do you remove the stereo in a Toyota Previa?

Remove the fuse cover (it’s a pop-off cover) by pushing the latch indicated in the picture below.

Once you push the button/latch you should be able to simple pickup and remove the cover as show below

Remove the two outer screws: these are the top two of four screws holding the top of the wrapping middle front fascia on, to which the radio assembly is attached as shown in the picture below

After removing the two screws you will have to remove the “Cup Holder”, “Ashtray”, and the liter compartment. These steps are little challenging so be patient. These three components should be removed in the following order to make life easier and prevent damage to your beloved PREVIA. Please see my “YouTube” videos for proper instructions:
1. Ashtray - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0xRCgQzTIA
2. Liter compartment - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYMFECuUnQM

(Ashtray removed

(Liter Compartment removed)

Now comes the tough part (removing the Cup Holder) this was kind of complicated for me. Apparently there are two more lower screws holding the bottom of the wrapping middle front fascia on (these are just behind and above the screws for the cup holder/fascia), but before you can get to these screws you will have to remove FOUR screws (one in each cornor, there are two in the left side, but one is behind the lighter) to remove the cup holder as shown below.

Once all FOUR screws are out you can feel the Cup holder and the cigarette-lighter is loose. Now you have to wiggle, push it back and slightly to the right and it should come out nicely and shown in the picture below

Once this is removed you should see the two final screws (Note: the right screw is longer than the left so when reinstalling make sure you use the correct screws

After removing all four screws you should be able to easily pull out the CD/Radio wrapping as shown in my video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sk42yMXjWA

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