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Passphrase Zip Code. Home Page Bilstein ES Availability: Ships by Feb 15, Qty Add to Cart. Any nut or bolt which is over tightened is essentially over stretching the bolt, or in this case the strut tube. This can lead to premature failure of the strut and require early replacing.
Over tightening also compresses the spring down further on the strut, causing preload to the spring. If you do not torque the nut to the proper value, your spring rates will change and this can affect handling as well as ride quality. To learn about spring rates and how they affect ride quality, you can read our post on this is topic HERE. Under tightening the top strut nut will cause a popping noise when driving, usually when going over small bumps. The cause of the problem is from the spring not being compressed enough from the top nut pushing down on firmly on the top hat.
As a result, the spring is essentially bouncing up and down between the top hat and spring perch on the strut. This noise is extremely annoying not to mention terrible for handling. During final assembly of the front struts, screw on the top nut enough to engage the threads to where one or two threads are showing. The main advantages of The Claw are low price and light weight. The main disadvantage is that it doesn't compress the spring evenly.
At best, you need to alternate tightening one, then the other, to keep the both sides of the spring evenly compressed. At worst, it's possible for one of them to "walk" along the spring until it slides down next to the other one, creating a huge bulge-out on one side of the spring. Some but not all claw compressors have safety dowel pins to prevent the spring from accidentally slipping out from under the claw. It uses a threaded rod to pull together two assemblies that are hinged at one end. Hooks and metal pins are used to secure the spring.
As is often the case, Chinese-made knockoffs appeared a few years back. A quick look shows that those appear to be largely gone from eBay. I can't say that I've ever used the clamshell, as it never appeared to be terribly substantial to me or to have a great amount of range. I still have it. It looks like a tire jack onto which someone has welded a pair of angled or slightly twisted plates that slide between the coils of a spring. You then turn the crank, and a threaded rod in the backbone of the "jack" raises the lower plate, thus compressing the spring.
This is an example of what I call a plate compressor, but apparently they're referred to commercially as fork compressors. But instead of having a hand-turned crank, they have the head of a bolt at the bottom of the backbone that can be turned with a wrench or a socket or, if you want to shorten its life, an impact wrench.
And they generally come with two or three different-sized plates to accommodate springs of different diameters. The huge advantage of these is that, unlike the claw or the clamshell that only contacts the spring at two points, the plate makes contact with the spring essentially all the way around, virtually eliminating the chance of slippage. There's another advantage that I'll get to when I discuss the alternate removal method.
The disadvantages are cost and weight. I give a strong recommendation to this style of compressors. Some bolt to a wall. Others are free-standing. Some simply have a long lever arm that you pull to compress the spring.
Others have a drill-press-like three-armed spindle wheel and gearing for mechanical advantage. A third type has an integrated bottle jack, letting a rising hydraulic cylinder do the work for you.
As with so many tools, what was once only available to pros has been copied and stamped out. The main advantage is that they hold the strut assembly securely and compress the spring quickly. The main disadvantage is size and cost. I've never used one.
Of the above four types, I strongly recommend the plate or fork-style compressor. Don't go there. The Strut Cartridge. Grossly speaking, strut cartridges fall into three categories:. In terms of removal and replacement, it doesn't really matter which type you have. They're all held in place in the tube with a collar nut that may have required a special tool back in the day, but after decades, it usually takes a pipe wrench to get it off.
Just be aware that, when you undo the collar nut and start to lift the old strut cartridge out, if it's narrow instead of filling up the entire tube, it's a "wet" cartridge and it's going to dump oil all over your garage floor if you're not careful. Now that you understand what a Macpherson strut is, what portion of it in a is the standard replaceable part, and what the spring compressor does, here are the steps for the standard procedure to remove the strut assembly and replace the strut cartridge.
I call them "strut tower bushings," and many in the community refer to them as "hats," but realoem. Since you're about to remove the hats, now is a good time to evaluate them.
If the rubber is cracked anywhere, replace them. They should spin freely without noise or binding. There should be little to no play in the bearing. And remember what it feels like when you spin it, because if you're reusing it, when you put the strut back together, it should feel about the same, maybe a little tighter but not binding.
If there's nothing obviously wrong with them, I don't have any qualms about reusing them, but some folks prefer prophylactic replacement. If you do reuse them, you might want to pick the old caked grease out with a fine pick and repack them.
If your car still has the original aluminum spacers between the hats and the underside of the shock tower, remove them. Their sole purpose was to satisfy U. With them gone, it'll settle down the front suspension so the car doesn't show as much wheel well above the front tires. And despite the note on c. They look stupid there. The strut cartridge is held in the tube by a collar nut also referred to as a gland nut at the top. If the struts still have the original oil-filled cartridges in them, there'll be what looks like a big hex nut at the top, but it's just a false cover.
Pry it off and it'll reveal the circular collar nut. The original collar nuts have two holes in them intended for a special tool with two pins. In either case, the common method of removing the collar nut is to use two big pipe wrenches, the ones with the thumb ring adjusters and the serrated jaws that bite into the material.
Why two? One to twist the nut, and the other to hold the body of the strut assembly still. Make no mistake, this will dig into and mar the outside of the strut tube. I don't really care about a few serrated gouge marks in places I won't ever see. If you do care, instead of using a second wrench, you can take a long piece of angle iron, drill two holes in it the same spacing as the holes on the tab on the strut housing that holes the brake lines, bolt it on, and secure it that way.
Me, I put the second wrench between the collar nut and the spring perch, as the gouge marks aren't plainly visible there. You need to flip the second wrench in the opposite direction of the first so it bites into the tube, presses against the ground, and prevents the thing from turning while you use the other wrench on the collar nut. Inspect the strut tower bushings and perch rubber.
If you have reason to replace them, do it. Also take this opportunity to inspect the ball joint and its rubber boot. If you need to replace the ball joint, you have to go through this same procedure to undo the steering knuckle from the bottom of the strut assembly, so if there's anything wrong with it, now's the time to deal with it. Hey, if you want to use this as an opportunity to remove the hub, replace the brake rotor and wheel bearings, and sandblast and repaint the strut housing, go for it.
But that's not my jam. The undersides of my cars are never going to look like anything other than the heavily-used cars that they are. I could act like a repair manual and say that "assembly is the reverse of disassembly," but it never quite is.
Thread the new strut cartridge into the tube and tighten it down. The torque spec I see here on the FAQ is 87 ft-lbs. That is tight. In comparison, the wheel lug nut torque is And, unless you have Bilsteins and the tabbed ring tool, you're doing it with a pipe wrench, not a torque wrench.
Lean on it with a good portion of your body weight. You'll feel when it stops turning. I've never stripped one. Note that these collar nuts can loosen up, and they make one hell of a sharp banging over bumps when they do.
Above, I teased that it is possible to replace the strut cartridges without removing the strut assembly from the car—specifically, without unbolting the bottom of the strut housing from the steering knuckle.
It is possible. I've done it. I wrote about it in detail here. You can leave the steering knuckle attached, but you still need to remove the caliper and unbolt the sway bar end link.
The key is that the kind of plate-style compressor I've been using enables the possibility of doing this because the tightening mechanism is at the bottom. You can't do this with either my crank-style compressor or with the claws because, in both cases, the tightening mechanism is at the top. If you turn the claws over so the tightening bolt is at the bottom, the extending length of the threaded rod hits the underside of the shock tower. The problem with this is two-fold. First, it is challenging to compress the spring, strut cartridge, and the hat so much that the studs on the hat clear the underside of the fender lip without scratching them.
If you look carefully at the photo above, you can see that I've repositioned the compressor so that the lower plate isn't on the spring—it's actually below the lower perch. This was necessary to squeeze the spring down as much as possible to clear the fender lip. The other problem is that, once you swing the strut assembly out, you still need to undo the collar nut, and that is more challenging with the assembly hanging out in space than it is with it laying securely on the garage floor.
In the above photos, I did it in my '72 tii. I was willing to try because, well, it's kind of a ratty car, so if I scratched the fender lips which I didn't , I wouldn't have really minded. I was successful, but when I had to do the strut replacement in Hampton, my 49,mile which is where the rest of the photos are from , I didn't want to take the chance, so I just removed the strut assemblies.
If you do other wrenching, it's not really a big jump to replacing front struts. It's nothing to be afraid of. Borrow or buy a spring compressor, follow the directions, use common sense, and you're highly unlikely to hurt yourself. Posted November 3, Great write up. If I do leave the strut attached at the bottom I have a old Crown Royal velvet bag I slip over the strut bearing to help prevent scratching on the fender wells and it adds a bit of class to the proceedings, this works well with lowering springs I would not recommend it with stock springs their just to tall IMO.
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Sign in with Twitter. Sign in with Google. The Hack Mechanic. Share More sharing options Followers 0. Front Strut Replacement Overview Okay. Parts New strut cartridges New strut tower bushings "hats" if they're bad New upper and lower perch rubber if they're bad Tools Spring compressor Two big pipe wrenches 13mm socket and wrench 14mm socket and wrench 19mm socket Rubber mallet, hammer, and chisel Wire cutters and needle-nose Vise Grips Possibly a MAPP gas torch The Big Picture When we say "front struts," we're talking about the replaceable front strut cartridge that threads into the tube that's part of the strut assembly.
The left front strut assembly. You can see how it not only suspends the car and absorbs shock, but also turns the wheel. The strut cartridge being slid out of the tube in the strut assembly. This is actually off my CSi, but the configuration on a is similar. Stock photo of a set of Bilstein front struts for an E46, showing how the replaceable part is no longer a "cartridge" but is instead a structural housing as well.
This is what I'm referring to as the strut assembly. This one has no safety dowel pins. OTC clamshell compressor. My ancient battle axe of a compressor, purchased from the hand of Michel Potheau himself. You can see the angled twist in the plates to allow them to slide between the angled coils of the spring. The little tabs on the end help ensure that the spring won't slide out. My recently-purchased plate-style compressor comes with three different sized plates. The assembled plate compressor.
An original oil-filled strut cartridge. Note how much smaller it is than the diameter of the strut housing. A Bilstein strut cartridge whose diameter essentially fills the strut tube. The caliper removed and set on the control arm. The sway bar end link locking nuts. The bolts with their safety wire holding the steering knuckle to the bottom of the strut housing.
Safety wire removed, one bolt partially out. Jacking up the end of the control arm to increase access to the middle bolt. Reaching that middle bolt with a box-end wrench. The steering knuckle freed from the bottom of the strut assembly, showing the notch as well as the castellated nut for the ball joint. Just three nuts between the strut assembly and freedom.
Yeah baby. The rubber for the "hats" is oven cracked. If it is, replace them, but if it's not and the bearing spins free and smooth, it's not a sin to reuse them. Preparing to compress. All the spacers and washers as they came off Hampton, my 49,mile I don't think they'd ever been apart.
The upper spring perch just slides off. Ready to remove the strut cartridge. The false cover on the original collar nut. The Bilstein gland nut with the notches in it. The two-monkey-wrench method of collar nut removal. This collar nut on my CSi required multiple applications of heat and torque before it gave it up. Verifying that the top of the spring is correctly seated in the perch and its rubber. Compressor on spring on still-installed strut.
Strut assembly swung out from under fender while still being attached to steering knuckle. Go to articles. Recommended Comments. SydneyTii 1, Posted November 3, Great write up Rob thanks.
Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options Leucadian Posted November 3, This is amazing. How do I order my hard copy? Son of Marty 2, Posted November 3, Georges 47 Posted November 4, Join the conversation You can post now and register later. Add a comment Insert image from URL. So, to replace front strut cartridges, the big picture is that you have to first: Remove the strut assembly from the car and lay it on the floor. Use a spring compressor to compress the spring to take the tension off the hat.
Remove the hat. Remove the spring. Then and only then you can remove the cartridge from the tube of the strut housing. The Spring Compressor You'll read two extremes online regarding using a spring compressor. If you look on Amazon or eBay, you'll see four main types of spring compressors: 1 The Claw: The simplest and cheapest.
The Strut Cartridge Grossly speaking, strut cartridges fall into three categories: Oil-filled. I don't know if all s originally had oil-filled strut cartridges, but I believe all the round tail light cars did. These are "wet" cartridges.
The cartridge is not the full diameter of the strut tube. When you remove the cartridges, oil streams out the bottom.
And when you tip the strut assembly upside down, more oil runs out. These are oil-filled as well, but they're "dry" cartridges. They're the diameter of the strut tube. If they're leaking oil, they're bad. Oil-filled struts and shocks don't really have a preferred direction.
When they're out of the car, it takes about equal effort to compress or to expand them. In contrast, the natural resting state of gas-filled or gas-pressurized struts and shocks is fully extended. When they're out of the car, if you compress them, they'll immediately expand back to their extended state. The pressurization and internal valving is or should be tuned to a car's weight so that, once weight is on them, they're more or less neutral with regard to up or down motion, but all other factors being equal, a car with gas shocks such as Bilsteins may sit a little higher at rest than a car with fluid-filled shocks.
The Standard Procedure Now that you understand what a Macpherson strut is, what portion of it in a is the standard replaceable part, and what the spring compressor does, here are the steps for the standard procedure to remove the strut assembly and replace the strut cartridge. Removing The Strut Assembly Jack up the nose of the car and set it securely on stands.
Work on one side at a time.
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