[wundej]

Hey guys,
ran into a problem w/ my front passenger side strut while installing some prodrive springs and bump stops.

The driver's side was fine, no problems. The passenger side nut on the bottom of the strut (to take the strut apart to get at the bump stop) is stuck on there good. It took a few turns and then started spinning the shaft inside the strut. I read that there is a detent inside that should act as a stop for removing this nut, but it feels like it's rounded off from the few tries to remove the nut.

I'm trying a few other things to get the nut off but haven't had much luck yet. Any ideas?

Anyone have a spare front strut they wanna get rid of in the PA/NJ/DE area?

[stretch]

I just went through this. I was able to find one strut for $40 shipped on eBay. It was for the wrong side of the car, but I'm going to cut/drill off that nut and put transplant and put the internals from the new strut into the old one.


This didn't work for me, but I'd try this anyway:

- Cut a groove in the end of the strut shaft.
- Hold the nut still with a wrench
- Get a plug-in (powerful) electric drill with a flathead screwdriver attatchment
- Use screwdriver to try to rotate the strut shaft while holding the nut still

[wundej]

Late last night we ended up getting it taken care of.

1st we tried cutting a slot in the shaft for a flat head screw driver, cut it as deep as possible and it would just strip the slot. Tried all sorts of variations of screw driver, impact, pressure trying to use what was left on the "D", no luck.

Was going to use a square ez-out to hold the shaft to either loosen/tighten the nut but didn't have any and all the local stores were closed.

Last resort was to cut the nut off, got the nut off, chamfered the end of the shaft to clean the threads up and used a washer and m10 nut that I had to put it back together.

All that for 1 stupid bump stop

One other quick question...

When tightening the large nut on the fronts while the assy is in the car, is there a trick to getting the shafts not to spin when torquing the nut down? I wish I had a camera to show the setup we used to do this.
Allen Key in the hex broach, 6mm closed end wrench on the Allen key, Larger wrench used on 6mm to add some leverage. This little assy was used to hold the shaft from turning.
Then used large vice grips on an impact socket to tighten down the nut enough so that it could be torqued.

It should have been a 2-3 hr job that lasted more than 6 because of that stupid nut. In the end I at least have some prodrive springs, front prodrive bump stops, and group-n mounts all around. Now just need to get my tires mounted and an alignment and I'm all set.

[TreyV]

Is it common for it to be that difficult to get to the front bump stops? Does it have more to do with mileage/age or could it be this hard even with newer vehicles?

[wundej]

I really hoped we weren't going to have problems, but that nut wasn't coming off without a cut off wheel. It's annoying because it was the last strut too.

It's not difficult to get at them providing you don't have the corrosion I did. Use penetrating fluid and make sure the DD is oriented properly before trying to loosen the nut.

You can thank the inverted struts for having to take that nut off. Otherwise it would be just a matter of sliding the stop off the shaft.

[JAYMAC10]

My bottom nuts just spun and spun as well when I was doing my prodrive spring install last weekend.... Took me about 20min of scratching my head and spinning the nut to find out that I had to push down on the entire strut in order for it to catch....

Just try and push down really hard on the entire strut while at the same time trying to remove the nut?

Hope everything works out for ya!

Jay

[TreyV]

So break the nuts loose with the strut still on the car?

[wundej]

Originally Posted by jaydow11

Just try and push down really hard on the entire strut while at the same time trying to remove the nut?

Did that, but the DD detent that keeps the shaft from spinning was rounded off. We ended up cutting the nut off.

[wundej]

Originally Posted by TreyV

So break the nuts loose with the strut still on the car?

That may help. I'd assume that the shaft is seated in the DD detent while the nut is torqued down, so you'd have a much easier time with it. I'm not sure but I think that would be the way to go.

[TreyV]

I give up, what's the DD detent?

[wundej]

There is a double "D" detent on the bottom of the shaft that seats on the inside of the housing. It looks like two capital D's back to back, or a circle with two flats on it. When you take the strut out, you'll probably be able to spin the shaft and feel the detent when pushing on it. Don't use an impact unless you know it's seated properly (or you'll round it off like we did).