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Lesson 6 of How to Remove and Disassemble Struts

 today is strutted that's these babies here which are one of the core components of any cars suspension and what we are going to be doing today is number one I'm going to show you how to move these from your car and number two I'm going to show you how to safe with us assemble these which means remove the coil springs and remove

  The shock absorber that's inside what we are also going to be doing is some struck forensics which means that once I disassemble these I'm finally going to find out what kind of coil springs and shock absorber the previous owner has installed on the car these came with the car and they are definitely not standard units and I have to be honest I like them and today I will also try and decide you know how I'm going to improve my struts on my car and improve the Handling but first things first let's remove them from the car we are going to start by applying some penetrating oil to the bolts that connect your strut to your steering knuckle now these have been sitting in there for a while they will not come out super easily so penetrating oil will definitely help you can also buy some penetrating oil to the nut that connects your outer tie rod to your knuckle because removing your steering rack connection to your Steering knuckle is a good idea because this will enable you you know to freely move your strut and knuckle as somebody giving you much better access for the balls I just mentioned now before you remove these bolts take note of this sort of camber adjustment tab here and mark its position so you do not lose your camber adjustment while removing these bolts now as I said these bolts have been sitting in there for a while they're pretty tight and an impact gun Is very helpful in this situation so once you get the ball actually move as you can see here what you will need to do is get a socket wrench or some other type of wrench to hold the bolt in place while while you remove the nut on the other side once the nut is out the ball - of course come out pretty easy now this is the upper bolt and you remove the lower bolt in the same way this means you can remove your steering knuckle but before You can do that you will need to hammer out the tab that holds your brake hose connected to your strut now this game this can easily be removed with a knife and a hammer and as you can see here is the tab and once the tab has been hammered out you can simply free your brake hose your brake line whatever you want to call it from your strut now the only other thing that keeps your strut connected you know in the lower half you know of its Position is is the XY bar end links unfortunately as you can see here in my case there removal was impossible because the nut would not come off and all I did was spin the bolt inside the sway bar end link this means I had to cut it off as you can see here so I could you know remove it from the sway bar and actually in the end remove my entire strut so now you can remove your student knuckle and get it out of place and then your entire lower half of your Strut is completely free the only other thing you have to get you know removed to get strut off the car is these four bolts and once they are in both the strut will simply fall down here we have the strut out of the car and before I show you how to take this thing apart I want to talk briefly about the forensics now there's two interesting things I have noticed about my struts number two is they have an adjustment knob on top and if you grab a Set of pliers you can twist this thing all the way to one side where it stops and then you can twist it all the way to the other side which also stops what this tells me is that this is definitely a dampening adjustment knob for adjusting your to a softer or harder setting now I have no idea which particular brand and model of shocks inside which is why I'm very curious and I'm actually hoping I have something nice like maybe Kony yells now The other thing are these coil springs I had I had trouble identifying them before but now that I have taken the strut of the car I managed to find a number and some letters and here it says G and M sure it says G and M 1 4 5 8 V a o or 0 I have no idea now after a lot of research I managed to find the company that makes these Springs and it's a company called G and M from Sweden and what they basically make are some very very cheap whoa and lowering springs for Your car now I didn't notice while I was driving my mr2 the derived of these is extremely harsh and I have to say I don't like them I have managed I do not I did not manage to find them you know on the market for the mr2 mark 1 anymore but I did manage to find them for some utter most of European cars and they are very very cheap definitely the bottom of the price range which I guess is no surprise when you consider that the companies called G and M which is Honestly a very stupid marketing move it's like calling your company B M and W or you know Merce and a DS or I have no idea really stupid I don't like him so they are definitely kicking the bucket now let me show you how to take the struts apart now to take the struts apart you need something called spring compressors ok so do we have a set of spring compressors what these things do is you attach them to the spring I'll show you in a moment like this basically And then you get your impact wrench or your socket wrench and you twist these two things until they compress the spring why are you doing this well there's a lot of restored in the spring and if you were simply to remove the top nut of your strut without compressing the springs there is a chance you know it will just pop into the air this thing hitting you on the forehead making a nice round imprint on your face which the guide I Would that would be you know storing you in the casket would have a lot of trouble you know removing from your face yeah and I start to ramble sorry now so let's compress the spring as you can see now the spring compressors have fully compressed the spring and the spring is now loose in the strut okay so once you have fully compressed the spring you can now get your impact wrench and remove the top nut now removing the top nut without an Impact wrench is really really hard so I definitely recommend an impact wrench for this job now once the top nut is gone this top strut mount basically just come off but because my car is the king of frost that doesn't happen so it needs a bit of white tapping from underneath to get the top mount off okay there we go this is the top mount cuts off inside you have a ball bearing and if your ball bearing is bad these need to be replaced Okay next we have hook it all that disgusting rust so this is the part actually the perch where the spring the coil spring sits we have the coil spring itself here we have the dust boot you can just pull that off that's boot there was this plastic thing here's some more strap forensics now look at the sway bar end link and you can see here it was welded together so what does this tell you when they ordered the car when they put the shoulder or in Springs the sway Bar end links for too long so what they did they cut it in have and cut a little you know piece from the middle and then weld it together so they're not doing anymore and now to get the shark out of the strut you need to remove this thing and this is a go and nut you so once you remove the gland nut just a couple more threads there we go once you remove this the shock comes Right out well let's shoot at least there we go well would you look at that it's yellow but I do not see any Connie wait did wait there's something here holy crap these are actually Connie adjustable shocks and if you can Rita made by Connie Holland here's the part number, and it says sport and it says a just a ball wow I cannot believe this honestly I was it was just a wild guess that it was Gonna be a Connie, but it actually is and I'm super happy about this of course I have to check if these are any good so far they seem pretty decent and I'm not sure I don't know how to inspect sharks and well so I have talked into that really happy about this now these are good I can actually reuse them get rid of those sprints and have a very pretty suspension so there you go guys let me just get down some more that's pretty much it for today we have seen How to remove the struts how to disassemble the struts and we have done some forensics definitely some good news today I finally have some actually decent high-end high quality parts on my car and the lane previous owner is not sewing today because of the horrible work is going to pay off if I have for good Connie adjustable shocks on my car so thanks a lot for reading don't forget to share why comment and subscribe and see you

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REBUILD suspension techniques STRUTS (shocks)

Hello guys and gals and welcome back once again to the d4 a channel today we are rebuilding our struts and we are going to get them from walking like this talking like this now the first thing you are going to need to do in order to rebuild your strut is of course remove them from your car and then take them apart if you want to see how that is done there's a video and you can click on the suggested video right There that shows you in detail how to do that so after we have removed and taken apart our strut here we have all the individual parts of the strut now we're gonna go and say a few words about each of them and also about how to inspect them and decide what needs replacing and what doesn't after that where I think you know assemble the strut and have our new shiny for you rebuild strut ready for installation on the car another thing That's important to mention before you start ordering parts for your strut rebuilt is to check to what extent your struts are removable sometimes the strut cartridge cannot be removed from the strut housing in that case you have to buy the unit as a whole because it's replaced as a whole to know whether the strut cartridges can be removed from your start housing simply check the top of your strut housing for a nut like this or this or something Similar this is a gland nut and if it's present that means it can be removed and that also means your strut cartridge can be replaced so starting with the biggest and most obvious thing here we have the spring the task of the spring is to absorb bumps and other imperfections in the pavement in my case I have decided to get some ibuprofen Springs to replace my old Springs which I hope will be a nice balance between aggressive Oaks comfort and handling so here's a Detailed look at my new iPad pro kit spring versus my old spring that I had installed on the mr2 now this is a no-name brand and it does all over the car quite a bit as you can see from this picture here it doesn't make the car look nice and aggressive but when it comes to the comfort and handling performance I have to say that I was unhappy with these Springs so let's look at some of the differences as you can See the eibach spring actually has more coils and the biggest difference is this part right here when this spring is installed this is the part that compresses the most and it generates a big height difference between these two Springs when installed now the iya spring may not go over the car as much as this one it won't make it you know as aggressive ogiing as this spring but when it comes to everything else this is a far better spring as you can see the Stiffness of this spring I cannot get it to bounce no matter how hard I push on the other hand the Ibis spring even with just a bit of force you can generate some decent bounce now you may think that this sort of bounciness is bad and that the stiffer spring is the better spring actually in reality the opposite is true when I drove the mr2 with these Springs I never felt confident enough to push the car to its limits whenever I hit even a small bump even a tiny Imperfection mid corner these Springs made me feel very uneasy and I felt as though the car was about to lose control I think the Ibis springs which are actually better at absorbing road imperfections but I also still keep the car stiff enough will actually enable me to enjoy the car more and be able to drive it properly edit edit limits and still be safe while doing that next up we have the shock absorber or strut cartridge this part goes inside the Strut in my case I have decided to go with some adjustable Pony yellow sport shocks when we're building your struts I definitely recommend always replacing your shock absorbers unless they have some very very low mileage on them decided to go with the Coney yells because after a lot of research online and reading a lot of different forum posts and reviews and whatnot I have found the feedback on these sharks to be overwhelmingly positive when it comes to The mr2 in particular I haven't managed to find a single person who has installed the cone yellows in their mr2 and has been you know unsatisfied with the results this is a sporty shark is going to provide a very noticeable improvement in the hand and performance of my mr2 another great thing about it is that it's adjustable which means you can adjust it for a more aggressive a stiffer ride when you feel like it or you can adjust it to be more comfortable When you simply feel like you know taking a more relaxed Drive next up we have a strut housing as already said this is where the strut cartridge is going to go into and everything else is also going to be attached to this part right here I decided to use the opportunity of my disassembled struts to restore this part so I had it sandblasted and then powder-coated next up we have the upper sprint seat which goes on top of the spring and a little Rubber insulator that goes right here what it does is it absorbs any sort of noise vibration and harshness that might otherwise occur if this thing wasn't here and if the seat and spring would make contact there was pretty much nothing to replace you so what I did as well is I powder-coated the upper spring see and I just got some new rubber insulators next up we have the bump stop which is installed like this onto the shock what it does is Actually prevents as the name suggests your entire strut from bottoming out and it's the final line of defense against damage and horrible uncomfort that can occur if your suspension bottoms out this is a very simple component just one solid piece of rubber and another one just like it inside of this sock mine's in good condition is just you know as I said rubber so no need to replace it unless it's completely worn out or damaged Next up we have the top mount and dust seals the top mount is what mounts the entire strut to the chassis inside the top mount we have a ball bearing just folks that for you so here we have a ball bearing with a very worn out dust seal here we have some new dust seals always replace the dust seals when rebuilding in your struts also you can replace the entire top mount in case the bearing inside has some play or it makes a lot of noise or is excessively rusty In my case the bearings actually it's in very good condition so I won't be pricing this I'll just replace dust seals and put some new grease in there and finally here we have the small parts this is the gland nut this is what keeps the shark from leaving the strut housing we have the top nut and washer this is what's going to go on top of the shark right here on the top mount and finally we have a natural at all the dust protector that's going to go here and Prevent dust from entering inside the shop now it's time to assemble the strut and actually do our rebuild when assembling destruct a big table vise just like this one is really helpful to hold this truck down so you can work on it I decided to sandwich my struct between those these two pieces of wood to avoid any sort of you know cosmetic or other types of damage to the strut housing now tighten it down reasonably well but don't overdo it Because you do not want to risk deforming the struct housing the first step is to actually install our shock absorber or our strap cartridge but before that we are going to fill the strut housing with some foil when it comes to the different folds that you can use to fill your strut you basically have three choices number one is engine oil number two is automatic transmission for it and number three It's cold now it doesn't really matter which of these three points you choose to put inside your strut why because they're all good at two things number one is heat transfer and number two is rust protection heat transfer is important because the strut cartridge actually the shock absorber when the works hard it generates heat and you want the foil inside the strut to transfer that heat away from the sharp body and onto the rest of the strut rust Protection is also of course important because the strut cartridge is going to spend probably a long time inside the strut and if you don't put any sort of rust protection in there it's going to rust badly and removing it is going to be a huge pain what I personally like to do is I like to take the strut cartridge and dip its bottom part into grease to ensure the ultimate rust protection and then fill the strut with some automatic transmission fluid and put the strut Cartridge in there if the cartridge doesn't fit inside the housing properly there's actually some extra material on the bottom of the strut insert that you can grind down until you can achieve proper fitment after you have installed the strut cartridge you can wipe off the excess fluid and then install the gland mat there are special tools for the installation of gland nuts like this one that have two holes in them but I found a big adjustable pipe wrench To work really well once the gun nut has been tightened you can slip on the little plastic dust protector and proceed to install the springs so here we have the springs for our front struts and here we have our rear strut springs because today we were building the front strut we are going to use this bad boy here and to install it on our strut we are going to need to compress it now to properly compress the spring we are going to need a special tool which is a Spring compressor what a spring compressor really is is just two pairs of cause with a bolt going through them and once you tighten the bolt the cause get closer together and by doing that they simply compress the spring so you can install it onto the strut when installing the spring take care of this little Ridge right here on the straw it's against this Ridge that the end of the coil is going to press against when It's installed well as the spring goes on there you can slip on the bump stop next up it's time to install the upper spring seat and inspect it for some sort of marking here in the case of my spring seat there is the sort of arrow that says out and this is the part of the spring seat that needs to be pointed outwards actually towards the wheel of the car you can then simply install the spring seat on top of the spring after that you can install dust seal grease up The little bearing inside the top mount and install the top mount itself after that you can install the washer and top nut indictment after that all that's left to do is dis all we release the spring compressors and you are done and there you have it boys and girls one fully rebuilt strut ready to be installed on the mr2 now I'm really looking forward to installing this and witnessing firsthand with the awesome Kona yellow shocks and my IVA croquette Springs can actually do now I'm certain it's going to be a world of difference compared to my previous yaki setup now of course is going to be a lot more videos on the suspension to come and we are going to be covering everything from the install to different adjustment settings and you know so on and so forth so definitely stay tuned for that if you have any sort of questions regarding the rebuild or the struts or anything else Especially related don't forget to hit me up in the comments section and I'll be you know happy to answer to the best of my abilities also don't forget to share like comment and subscribe you know for more content just like this that I hope is informative as well as entertaining I guess that's pretty much it for today thanks a lot for watching and I'll be seeing you soon on the D for a chat