strut insert help

[87911jon]

My buddy Dave ('72 911) and I ran into an unexpected problem. My car is a '77 with the original, very shot, Konis. The Koni strut insert purchased from Pelican does not fit in the original Koni housing. The top of the strut insert sits about 3/4" above the top of the housing. There isn't enough room to screw the nut that holds the strut in the housing. Hmmm!!!? Looking inside the empty housing there's a visible screw way down at the bottom. Should this come out? Any ideas please? Thanks.

[911s55]

Did you lower the car down on it's wheels?
You can also cut a section out of the rubber snubber (triple stack) that goes on top of the strut under the cover, I don't recall if you cut one section off the top or bottom.

[Type 4 Unleashed]

I take it the strut is still mounted on the ball joint, some struts do have an allen bolt that you access when the strut is removed, that holds some inserts in place, and the insert has a threaded piece on the bottom of the insert.

Sorry though I don't know what years had which, or if you can use the inserts you have in that particular housing. What about the inserts you removed, check them aginst the new ones, but it seems odd the allen bolts were not holding the old inserts in place ?

Check with Pelican about the ones you purchased, and your old ones.

And maybe someone will reply that knows what they are talking about.

[87911jon]

My '77 has 56k on her, I believe the driver's side Konis we took out was the original one from the factory (see picture 3). Picture Picture 2 shows the view looking straight down into the empty strut housing. At the very bottom there's a screw. Don't know what it's there for. Can anyone tell me? Can I remove it and will removing it give me the extra space needed? I've searched and searched and could not find anything similar to this. In Wayne's 101 Projects, it says to drop the strut in. Oy! Picture 1 is the strut housing. Picture 3 shows the old strut insides. Specifically what's happening is when we dropped the strut insert into the housing, the insert sticks up about 3/4" above the top of the housing. this means I can't contain the insert in the housing, the top will not screw on.

[87911jon]

Just talked to the friendly folks at Pelican. He said the screw that I'm seeing in the bottom of the strut housing should not be attached to anything and should come out with a magnet, thus making room for the whole insert. Said he ran into this with a '70 911 he recently worked on. Can't wait to get home and try it...

[Type 4 Unleashed]

Inserts are pressurized sealed units, yours look's to be really broken, and the rest of it is sitting in the bottom of your housing. It looks like a bolt and the insert valving along with the bottom of the old Insert is sitting in the bottom of your housing.

If the magnet idea doesn't work, the next stept is to remoe the strut from the ball joint.

[Rouxzy]

87911Jon,
I have the same setup in my '77. That insert isn't shot it is just plain broken in pieces. The insert should have come out in one piece. I know I had to fight with mine to get it out. You should be left with any empty cavern with no parts at all at the bottom. Good luck.
Tom

[MattAlpha]

With your strut insert in that condition, you need to check your ball joint too. If its original as well, take a very close look at it and see if its bound up by trying to articulate it a bit by moving you A-arm and your empty strut housing. If the ball joint is bad, this is the best time to replace it. You may also want to check out your tie rods and A-Arm bushings as well.
This could get a bit pricey, but better to get everything working correctly and only have to pay for a front end alignment once this year.
-Matt

[87911jon]

A magnet was the hot ticket. The original strut uses a valve (very intricate, half dollar size piece) that sits in the bottom of the housing. Once this was out, the new insert dropped all the way in. MattAlpha you're right, I'll be ordering turbo tie rods, ball joints and bushings... makes no sense not to do it at this point. Another good learning experience. Thanks to all.