Front lift setup questions

[lannvouivre]

I am seriously ready to throttle someone.

I have the stock strut housings. One is, for some reason, welded so the insert cannot be removed. ****ing thankyou, PO, for your fantastic foresight.
I have the stock springs, hats, and mounts.

I don't want to go with the stock springs really because we'll be keeping the A/C (this is Texas).

I have AW11 KYB inserts.

I have 1990 or so Corolla All-track struts, springs, coil hats. The internals of the shocks are no longer with us (BTW not serviceable by ordinary means: you can remove the strut housing "nut" and they turned out not to be cartridges).

No local yards have any 80s-90s vehicles. The closest ones are over 100 miles away.

I'm reading that you can combine the stock housings and mounts, 83-86 camry springs/spring hats, and AW11 inserts. I have sent an email to an ebay seller about an 83-86 camry.

There was also something about using the all-trac shocks/housings/springs with the stock mounts. The shocks I got were blown and I can't find new ones. I have the top nuts that were holding the guts of the shocks. The AW11 inserts are like 1.5" longer than the all-trac housings, but could I have a section of pipe welded into the housings to lift that retaining nut above the AW11 cartridges' main housings?

I don't even know where I got the idea that AW11 cartridges and all-trac struts was a thing, honestly, or if these housings and springs are indeed from an all-trac or not.

[lannvouivre]

I also have KYB 365075 I think at Zach's house, but they have considerably less travel than the MR2 cartridges and like an inch or two less than the all-tracs did.

[teranfirbt]

Toyota originally did not design any of their struts to use inserts, they all had strut jiblets inside the strut housing like the all trac struts you mentioned. You should be able to get a pair of all trac strut inserts and put them into the housings, the gland nut will be included with the new struts.

[lannvouivre]

I have a pair of inserts for the all-trac, but they have much less travel. They are all-trac inserts. The top nut is also too small, so I think they were for a FWD corolla. Luckily, I have the original nuts.

[Petros]

the fwd corolla had the smaller dia strut tube, same as the Tercel. the all-trac and the GTS corolla has the larger dia struts, and the travel was about the same (I measured them side by side).

You can grind off the weld to get it apart. I know why it was welded, I have had the nut back off on our rough roads, for some reason the large strut nut backs off and goes loose, so it acts like it has no dampener. makes lots of racket too. I had to pull it all out, use a spring compressor to take it all appart, clean up the threads and assemble using loc-tight on it.

A big vise is nice but not necessary to pull the strut apart: used two large pipe wrenches (cheap ones work), one on the tube and one on the top nut to get it off. Or you can use just one if you can find a way to bolt the other end to something heavy like a trailer hitch or heavy steel table or something so you can put a lot of force on the nut end. A large pipe wrench is really handy for when large nuts or bolts get stuck, you can put a lot of force on them even if the flats are damaged. I used one to get off a rounded off and very stubborn transmission filler plug.

[teranfirbt]

The trick to the gland nut is to do all of the loosening/tightening in the car there's enough room in the fender and between spring coils to get a large set of channel locks or a pipe wrench in. I've done both my Tercel and MR2 that way and have only had to retighten once after everything settled.

[irowiki]

You can also set the complete strut on the ground, point it somewhere safe, and use an impact to get the big nut off.

Won't help you get it back on though.

[teranfirbt]

You're talking about the nut that holds the top hat on or the strut cartridge in the strut housing?
Would highly recommend never allowing a suspension spring to release uncontrolled, that's a recipe for disaster at some point, if you're talking about the nut that holds the top hat onto the strut rod.

[irowiki]

The nut that holds the top hat to the strut rod.

I saw a youtube video and gave it a try on an old tired camry strut and it actually worked...but do that sort of thing at your own risk.

[lannvouivre]

The one for the strut cartridge was welded on. We tried grinding the welds, but honestly it's got too much bead on it and I threw the whole thing on the scrap pile.

I'm going to have to use the all-trac struts, springs, and 363060 KYB cartridges because that's all I can do right now. I'm pretty sure they're FWD corolla cartridges and not all-trac but that's the best I've got.