Musings from Joel

As I continue to overhaul this car and get it road worthy I decided to tackle the struts this week. The front struts require jacking the car up and removing both wheels. You then have 3 bolts in the engine area that have to be removed to drop the struts down. At the bottom of the struts you must undo to small screws that hold the brake line and some other line to the struts. Then there are 2 large 22mm bolts that attach to the brake and steering assembly that must be undone. Then the struts will come down and out.

This is when the work starts. I suggest you go to the auto store and buy or borrow some strut spring compressor tools. These compress the spring down so you can safely remove it from the old strut. There are a few other items to consider. The strut top mount may be bad. Mine didn’t look bad, but I replaced them anyway. They cost around $70 each at the auto store. I got them on ebay for $60/set. Under this is a ball bearing pack that comes apart with a little effort. But be very careful, there are about 20 large ball bearings in there that can fly ou and go everywhere. I suggest opening it in a bucket and cleaning it with some engine cleaner. Once that is done you will want to repack them with fresh grease. This took me about 15 minutes a side. Then then is a large plate that sits on top of the spring to keep it in place. Under this is a rubber gasket that my be worn down.
You will need to compress the spring to be able to remove the top screw that holds the strut assembly together. I ended up using an electric drill to turn a socket head to tighten the strut tool which is nothing more than a large screw with 2 hook like plates sticking out of it that fasten onto the spring and compress it.

One the compression is done you simply unscrew the top screw and take appart the unit. Then you get the new strut and reassemble the same why it came apart. Make sure you use the left strut and the right strut on the correct side. My brand was universal for the front so it was not an issue. You also need to make sure you re align the strut head to tilt inwards. Total time to remove and reassemble these was around 4 hours. Total cost was around $350 for parts. M understanding is that shops charge around a grand to do the work I did. Not a bad savings.