Looking for a 4WD front driver side strut tube

Need a car part and don't know where to get it or how to install it. Look here!
User avatar
NWMO
Highest Ranking Member
Posts: 1615
Joined: Wed May 20, 2015 1:08 pm

Re: Looking for a 4WD front driver side strut tube

Post by NWMO »

DanT,

Just dump it out to avoid any mess, you are correct, the original cartridges simply leaked.

Chris
Psalm 37:4 "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart"

In remembrance of my friend ARCHINSTL:

T4WD augury?
"Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?' Let us go and make our visit."
T.S. Eliot - "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

"Now and then we had a hope that, if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates."
Mark Twain
User avatar
ARCHINSTL
Goldie Forever
Posts: 6369
Joined: Sat Apr 30, 2005 1:52 pm
My tercel:: Goldie is a 1986 SR5 attualmente con Weber/also owned the first T4WD in STL in late '82
Location: Kirkwood, a 'burb of St. Louis

Re: Looking for a 4WD front driver side strut tube

Post by ARCHINSTL »

T4WD augury?
"Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?' Let us go and make our visit."
T.S. Eliot - "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
"Now and then we had a hope that, if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates."
Mark Twain
User avatar
DanT
Top Notch Member
Posts: 103
Joined: Fri Dec 02, 2011 2:47 pm
My tercel:: 83 Toyota Tercel SR5 Wagon
Location: Ithaca, NY

Re: Looking for a 4WD front driver side strut tube

Post by DanT »

Yahoo! I rebuilt the struts with KYB cartridges and got them in by myself. Took the car out for a test drive. I can definitely feel the difference in the ride. Sweet! Actually have functional "shock absorbers" in the front now!

This was a big intimidating job for me to do the first time, but now that I have been through it (with the essential help from this list) it would not be so difficult next time. I will pass on some of my experience below for other newbies...

Thanks for weighing in on the oil question in the strut tubes Chris and Tom. I was able to dump the oil out of the tubes with confidence , and drop in the new KYBs. (I think that Chris is probably right that the oil simply leaks out of the failing cartridge and collects at the bottom of the tube.)

Following Petros suggestion, I used a 5 foot long 2 x 4 as a pry bar to lower the stabilizer bar to get these rebuilt strut assemblies re-attached to the steering knuckle. Worked very well. I actually sat on the 2 x 4 while I put the bolts in, and was able to do this by myself. I placed the 2 x 4 flat across the attachment point for the lower control arm on the frame as a leverage point, and the flat wood worked well here. See photo attached.

I noticed that the stabilizer bar for the second wheel was significantly easier to lower than the first wheel. Why? My suspicion: I think it is easier to press this stabilizer bar down if you just remove one strut assembly at a time, and don't remove both of them at the same time, like I did. (After I lowered the stabilizer bar on the driver side and anchored it, I think this action would have made it easier to lower the stabilizer bar on the opposite side. The stabilizer bar is essentially U-shaped, and logic would suggest that the anchor point on one side is going to affect the height and tension on the opposite side.)

This also would explain why it might be possible to use the foot to stabilizer bar approach in the service manual to install a strut assembly... if you just remove one strut at a time. However, with both struts out I am skeptical about whether this FSM approach would be possible. (I had the car blocked with both struts out at the same time.)

One other thing in the FSM that did not work for me was relying on that keyhole in the top of the spring assembly cap to keep the shaft of the cartridge from turning... so you can loosen the nut. Not going to happen. That keyhole is not going to hold the shaft securely enough to loosen the nut on these old used struts.

As shown in Robert Walker's video, I needed to clamp a vice grip, tighter than hell, on the shaft within the top inch of the shaft, to have any hope of ever getting that nut off. And I needed to do the same thing when I put the new KYBs back in. As Robert points out, the cartridge is never going to pass over that top 1 inch , since there is a rubber cushion of at least 1 inch thickness. But without that vice grip, I would still be at the workbench in the garage staring at that nut .

Oooftah, glad to have this one completed.

Thanks,
Dan
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Post Reply