Changing my struts

[fredg]

I bought 4 new Tokico Blues back in May and am just now getting them put on. I did the rears today, well almost. My son was helping me and apparently neither of us noticed the spacer that goes under the top nut until we had one side done and in the car.

No biggie, it's pretty easy to pull them back out. Once out we attempted to loosen the nut to add the spacer, no dice. It appears that my son got a little carried away tightening them the first time and now the slot in the strut mount was stripped. The problem is that you have nothing to hang on to to hold the strut shaft while taking the nut off. We got lucky and got it off with a 1/2" drive impact wrench.

Now we have to pop for $60 for a new mount, at least we didn't fry the strut.

All in all this is a pretty simple job if you have the spring clamps and a strap wrench to hold the strut plate to loosen the nut and if you pay attention when taking it apart!!! We did torque the other strut plate nut to the correct 36 lbs.

Got the strut mount ordered and will tear into the fronts tomorrow.

Just thought I would pass on my screw ups for the next guy to avoid!

[hungt1999]

to do the front struts, don't forget to take a pen or marker to mark the relationship of the strut foot relative to the steering knuckle to preserve the camber angle. One of the two bolts holding it to the steering knuckle is eccentric in order to let you set the camber angle so you might pay attention to that as well. Those two bolts are very tight and even if you successfully remove the nuts, getting the bolts to slide out requires a lot of pounding as well.

[fredg]

Thanks hungt1999 for the tips! I was aware of marking the position but had forgotten to look out for the eccentric bolt. We plan on being more attentive when disassembling the fronts!

[Bitter]

mine had no camber bolts, they were just plain big mean strong bolts.

[fredg]

Originally Posted by Bitter

mine had no camber bolts, they were just plain big mean strong bolts.

Yeah I doubt mine will either as from the factory they have regular bolts from what I can make out with the manual, and the torque spec is 203 ft lbs!!!

[Greasewrench]

Originally Posted by fredg

Yeah I doubt mine will either as from the factory they have regular bolts from what I can make out with the manual, and the torque spec is 203 ft lbs!!!

Mine are regular bolts as well. also a good tip when doing the fronts (or rears) once u loosen the nuts u can loosely fit the nuts back over the strut bolts, put a socket on the nuts, then bang them out with a rubber mallet or ball peen hammer. this way the socket gives u a striking surface to push the bolts out instead of hammering directly on the stud of the bolts. u can soak the nuts/bolts in pb blaster and ratchet out the bolts with the nuts loosely installed too.

[kevmac]

200+ ft lbs is a piece of cake with a 25" long 1/2" torque wrench. I used loctite My front wheels really didn't need a realignment but I did it anyway.