To those who have done it, any tips on replacing strut bearings?

[chrisp]

I bought new strut bearings for my SC from Bilstein. Bilstein advised that I could either take out the existing ones or press the existing ones further down into the strut body and press in the new ones in place of the old.

Not many even know these are in the strut body and even fewer have had them replaced so I'm not expecting a huge response. If you have done it any tips would be appreciated.

The reason I am doing this is I am chasing a slight front end vibration under braking and although I have tried multiple sets of wheels, brakes, and rotors the problem has never gone away. My car also feels like it has loose wheel bearings all of the time...but it's not the bearings.

[Oh Haha]

Uh, any pictures of what you are talking about?
I have been chasing a vibration at speed as well and would be interested in what you find.

Ok, I just checked my newly purchased Bentley manual and there is absolutely nothing mentioned about a bearing in or around the front strut. The exception is the wheel bearings.

[chrisp]

No pics. If you remove the strut insert (on a bilstein body with bilstein insert) and look inside the strut body you'll see two sleeves that have been inserted. The higher one is about 1" below the end of the body and the lower one is about 1-2" below the upper one. In between the two is filled with grease.

If you're positive that your wheel bearings are adjusted properly (perhaps even artificially too tight) and you do the normal wheel bearing test by grabbing and tugging on the wheel/tire and you feel play it's probably your strut body bearings.

The bearings (they look more like sleeves than bearings...although they are correctly called plain bearings) are about 1.75" in diameter. They are approx 5-6mm thick and they are probably about 30-35mm long. These numbers aren't anywhere near exact but it gives you an idea of what size they are.

[chrisp]

Here are some pics. Pic 1 is the strut body with exisiting bearings. You can see the upper and lower bearing pressed into the tube:


Pic 2 is of the new bearing sitting on top of the strut tube to give you an idea for how it positions in the strut tube:


Pic 3 is of the bearing itself:

[TimT]

Yep done this... had to cut down a set of struts to get a car really low, cut the struts, pressed the exisiting bearing down and installed a new one. Had the inserts shortened while at it, got suspension travel

this was on a 914 with RSR bits all around.. used to bottom out.

[Oh Haha]

Must be unique to Bilstein struts. I have BOGEs so I guess that's not gonna be my problem. You learn something new about these cars all of the time, don't ya?

[joefrantz]

Chrisp

I was advised by Steve Weiner to liberally grease those bearings before sliding the inserts back in.

Good post on a pretty obscure detail

Thanks

Joe

[chrisp]

My plan was to tap them down since the strut body is constant ID and it'll be another 20 yrs or 100k miles before it needs to be looked at again. At that point they can be removed.

Bilstein removes them and inserts the new ones when you send them the strut body. They do confirm though that pressing them deeper in the tube and leaving them there is ok.

[Bill in OKC]

It looks a bit like rebuilding motorcycle forks.

[AzTarga]

Yep , fork tube bushings , 1st thing I thought of .