[Shotimes] Front Strut R&R

[Carl Prochilo]

This ever happen to you?  Sorry for the long post, but worth reading.

On Thursday I started into the right side.  Tie-rod came off nice as did
the tension strut nut.  I thought I was on easy street since I knew the
routine.  I try to pull the knuckle off the strut but it doesn't want to
budge.  Through various tries, I'm able to move the strut up a little, but
I notice that the strut moves up and down freely.  Plus I hear metal
jingling as I'm moving stuff around.  Too early for Christmas.  Even tried
a big ass crow bar to pry the knuckle down but now I'm thinking this is
going to be a much more involved ordeal.  So leave this alone, skip Friday
and resume today.  I decide to back the subframe down.  Paul's idea has a
lot of merit, plus it satisfies George's requirement to exercise those
fasteners.  George, I'm going to modify the instructions to mention
lowering of the subframe on the side that is being worked on as an
additional step to take for extra clearance.

Now I have all kinds of play, but the strut doesn't want to stay in place.
 Holding the knuckle down with the pry bar, I use a hammer against the
strut housing, the opposite tab where the end-link connects to, (Tokicos
are mighty tough) and am able to back the strut off finally!!!  Here's
what I found.

http://tinyurl.com/5rdhs

The collar nut was not fastened to the housing.  If you look carefully,
you can see where the threads got banged up from the weight of the car.  I
had to dremmel out a row of threads in the housing to get the new nut to
start.  I hope there are still enough threads to hold the insert in place.
 It seems to be okay from what I can tell putting it back together.

Another interesting thing was that the old strut bearing came apart.  One
tab that held the bearing in the case was missing.

http://tinyurl.com/4g65r

Also, the washer (N806779-S100) that goes between the mount and the boot
was missing, so I have to replace that.  I guess the guy that installed
this for me decided the washer was optiona.  The rest of the pictures are
here.

http://tinyurl.com/6f858

No funny comments about the purple gloves!!!  These are actually very
durable and don't tear as easily as some of the other gloves I've used.
-- 
Cheers,
Carl Prochilo
92 Ultra Red Crimson

On Fri, November 5, 2004 1:15 am, George Fourchy said:
> On Thu, 4 Nov 2004 14:11:36 -0500, Ron Porter wrote:
>
>>For all of the easy stuff that George has on his CA cars, ask him about
>>removing suspension pieces from Kris Angermeier's WI car at the Madison
>>Convention!!
>
> LOL!!  It was easy to do....I just kept pushing and pushing with my right
> leg, on my
> 20 inch ratchet, and finally the right rear TS just went "pop".  After
> that the
> strut came right out.  'Course we had to park the car with chocks and the
> emer.
> brake VERY tight, until we could find another tension strut.
>
> It might be a good idea to "exercise" all those fasteners up in the
> "corroded north"
> every once in a while after you get them loose the first time, so that you
> CAN do
> the job in 20 minutes.
>
> ;-)!!!!!
>
> I'm going to TRY to make a video of when I swap the struts on the black
> car.....someday, when it comes back from being painted.....don't ask!
>
>
> George