Technical Shock Absorber Change

[sean.round]

Hi Guys,

I need to change a shock absorber on my car and no matter how hard i try, I cannot get the strut top nut to shift. The whole shock absorber seems to twist in the car. I now have a slight crack, probably 4-5mm in the top of the thread so a 6mm allen key bit attached to a ratchet wont grip. I've stopped for now as I don't want to do any more damage.

Can anyone help?? How the hell do I get it to back off a bit as the guide on fiatboo.co.uk suggests?

Thanks,

Sean

 

[m20b25]

Hi Guys,

I need to change a shock absorber on my car and no matter how hard i try, I cannot get the strut top nut to shift. The whole shock absorber seems to twist in the car. I now have a slight crack, probably 4-5mm in the top of the thread so a 6mm allen key bit attached to a ratchet wont grip. I've stopped for now as I don't want to do any more damage.

Can anyone help?? How the hell do I get it to back off a bit as the guide on fiatboo.co.uk suggests?

Thanks,

Sean

Hi

Are you trying to loosen the nut while its in the car? Do you have a new strut to put in? What I do in that situation is take it out of the car, grip the top part with a vise grips and give it hell. Near the top never goes into the strut itself when all assembled again

 

[The Professor]

I had this problem on a Brava when changing the front suspension struts. One side loosened off fine, the other just rounded the Allen socket in the piston rod when any serious torque was applied to the nut, despite using the right size Allen key, properly engaged.
As you are changing the strut you can afford to sacrifice the piston rod. The way I did it was to remove the whole strut unit from the car and fit the spring compressors. I compressed the spring enough to take the load off the top mount then drilled vertically down with a 3mm drill between the nut and the piston rod. I wrapped a piece of tape around the drill as a depth guide so I didn't drill through the bottom of the nut into the top mount. I then took the drill diameter up in stages, expecting to then split what was left of the nut with a chisel. In fact, the nut loosened by itself as the grip on the thread disappeared and I could wind the remnants off. Obviously the nut and piston rod are knackered by this process, but as you're renewing them anyway...

 

[johnsons63]

Hi Guys,

I need to change a shock absorber on my car and no matter how hard i try, I cannot get the strut top nut to shift. The whole shock absorber seems to twist in the car. I now have a slight crack, probably 4-5mm in the top of the thread so a 6mm allen key bit attached to a ratchet wont grip. I've stopped for now as I don't want to do any more damage.

Can anyone help?? How the hell do I get it to back off a bit as the guide on fiatboo.co.uk suggests?

Thanks,

Sean

Mine is already worn out and needs to be replace also. im glad that i found this thread. i have an idea now how will i work on my absorber when i replace it. thanks for the info guys :slayer: