OK, I'll try to do a proper write up on this in the near future. It's been a while now since I did it, so I'll have to take a look in the repair manual and at my car to remember exactley what I did. BTW, I went with Gabriel strut inserts. I wanted to use Monroe Sensatracs, but they were just too expensive and I couldn't justify the extra cost.
I remember that a few of the things I did were definitely on the tricky side. arbskynxnex, I think I know what you were trying to do that caused you to scratch up the piston, and there is a trick to it.
I'll write a bit now off the top of my head, and then edit this post later to include more details. Unfortunetly I don't have any pictures of what I did. However, I can scan in the section from the Factory Repair Manual that covers the work. It skips a lot of important stuff that makes this possible for the backyard mechanic though.
I've heard rumor that some of the 4wd tercels came with struts without replaceable inserts. This is yet unconfirmed, and I think it may not be true.
Here is roughly what I did:
- Tools that I needed to do the job included: A large pipe wrench, a large solidly mounted vise, a pair of really good large vise grips, a strut spring compressor, a standard metric socket set, a 1/2" rachet, a 0-90 ft/lb torque wrench, and 3-4' long pry bar And some other things I'm sure I've forgotten.
- Materials and Parts needed included: Two new strut inserts (with new nuts for pistons and piece that screws into strut to hold in cartridge), general purpose grease, a little bit of engine oil.
1. Park your car in a good location to work on it (eg. a shop or a flat dry section of your driveway). Put the ebrake on and put blocks in front and behind your rear tires for extra measure.
2. Loosen the lug nuts on your front wheels. Open your hood. Remove the little rubber caps that hide a nut in the strut mounts on each side of the car (located at the top of the strut towers on each side of the car). This nut is what holds the strut mount to the end of the strut piston, as well as holds the spring in place. Loosen this nut off a few turns; be sure NOT to remove it entirely.
3. Jack up the front of your car until the front tires come off the ground about 2" or more. Place jack stands in appropriate locations, and lower the front of the car onto the jack stands so that they hold at least some of the weight; you can use your jack to hold some weight too (if you are using a decent quality hydraulic type). Remove your front wheels.
4. Remove the three nuts on each side of the car on top of the strut towers that hold the strut mounts in place. These should come off pretty easy.
Note: From this point on I am just going to explain how to do one side; just do the same for the other side.
5. Remove the nuts on the two bolts that hold the bottom of the strut to the steering knuckle (but leave the bolts in for now). Note and mark the location of the camber adjustment lobe (it should be rusted into place, but if it moves it will screw up your camber).
6. Use a long pry bar (3-4') to push down on the steering knuckle (put one end under the body of the car). While pressing down, have someone remove the two bolts that hold the strut to the steering knuckle. (The bolts should slide out without much difficulty if the right pressure is applied on the pry bar). Seperate the steering knuckle from the strut.
7. You should now be able to remove the entire strut assembly as one piece; it's a little tricky to get out; make sure you don't damage your CV boots. Take it into your shop, and put it into a vise standing upright (tighten the vise on the bottom of the strut assembly being careful not to damage it).
8. Use your strut spring compressor to compress the spring in the strut assembly. Compress it until it no longer applies pressure and is quite loose. (I rented a manual screw/bolt type spring compressor - works good but is slow going).
9. Now you have to finish removing the nut that holds the strut mount to the top of the strut piston. Make sure you leave the strut housing in the vise as instructed previously. This is a tricky part because unless you do this right, you won't be able to get the nut off of the strut piston; this piston will just turn. The trick is this: The top of the strut piston has two notches in it, and the top spring perch has two notches in it. The two mate together to normally prevent the piston from turning as the nut is tightened, however, now there is no spring pressure and the nut is loosened enough that the spring perch may no longer be sitting properly on the strut piston. So what I did is clamped my two vise grips on the spring perch, and had my assistant (wife) hold the vise grips and push down on the spring perch. This kept the notches mated, and prevented the assembly from turning. I then proceded to use my rachet to finish removing the nut.
10. Remove the nut, strut mount, top spring perch and compressed spring from the strut housing. Carefully clean the strut mount and top spring perch assembly and repack the bearing in the strut mount with general purpose grease. Set these cleaned parts aside.
11. Now use the pipe wrench to remove the screw piece that holds the strut into the strut housing. Even if rusty, a large pipe wrench and vise will do the trick. I used a pipe wrench that had about a 7" grasp ability and a 3' handle. You should now be able to pull the strut out of the housing. Note there should be a bunch of oil in the housing. Dump it out into a bucket and dispose of it appropriately.
12. Put new oil into the strut housing (around the same amount as you dumped out). Compare your new strut to the old strut to make sure they are the same. If so, slide the new strut into the strut housing. Use the pipe wrench again to screw in the new strut retainer screw piece. Ensure that the strut is held tightly in the strut housing.
13. Put the still compressed spring back onto the strut housing. Make sure you use the rubber covers on the spring again (these help dampen vibrations). Also, make sure that you line the spring up with the indentations on the spring perch.
14. I think I forgot to earlier mention that there is a rubber cover piece that protects the strut piston, I think it also servers as a bumper stop. Make sure you install this too; as it was originally. Put the top spring perch onto the top of the strut piston. MAKE SURE that the two notches (mentioned earlier) line up and slide together. Install the strut mount on top of the spring perch.
15. Here is the tricky part again. You again have to clamp the vise grips onto the spring perch. Have your helpful assistant hold the spring perch down on the notches, and prevent it from turning. Install the new nut onto the top of the strut piston. Put the nut on as far as you can until the vise grips no longer hold. (no more than the spec'ed torque though - you'll have to check the repair manual for this). Don't worry about torquing all the way yet if you can't hold it - you can do the rest later on when the assembly is back in the car. The most important thing is to make sure that the notches have lined up, and are held together at least part way.
16. Check that the re-assembled parts look the same as they originally did (except that the spring is still compressed). If everything looks good, then decompress the spring. Again, becareful that the spring has the rubber covers on it and lines up properly with the top and bottom spring perch indentations.
17. Remove the strut assembly from the vise. Reinstall the strut assembly into the strut tower of the car. First loosely put the three small nuts onto the strut top mount to hold the assembly in the strut tower. Then slide the top of the steering knuckle back into the bottom of the strut housing. Again use the pry bar to pry down on the steering knuckle to allow you to slide the bolts in again. Install the nuts on these bolts and torque to spec.
18. Torque the top three nuts to spec. Ensure that all installed parts are as they were originally.
19. Yay!
You have now completed one strut; now go do the other one.
20. After repeating the above steps for the second strut, put the front wheels back on and tighten the lugs as snuggly as you can. Lower your car back down (remove jack stands etc.). Torque your wheel lugs.
20. Torque the nuts (to spec) that holds the strut mount to the strut piston (one on each side of the car); nothing should turn as the weight of the car will hold those previously mentioned notches together and allow you to fully torque the nut. Replace the rubber cover to hide the nut.
21. Take the car for a drive and make sure everything feels good. If you have any questions throughout the above procedure, post on this forum with the title 'HELP NEEDED FAST!', I'll probably see within 24 hours and try to answer your questions. Or someone else on here who has done their struts will help out.
- You can take the opportunity when all the parts are disassembled to clean the rust off with a wire brush and paint with tremclad; this will help prevent future rust. Especially do this on the spring - it will prevent further weakening of the spring.
Again, I'm sure I've missed some stuff, but this is a good start.
Cheers. B)
, so I had to put the old one back in on one side. Someone at the parts place had put the wrong shock in the right box. Lesson learned, always look at ALL parts to make sure they are right before disassembling your car. I'll be picking up the second correct front insert today which I hope to install tonight.
