Questions on installing front shocks.

[autobonrun]

The instructions that come with the Bilsteins are not that good and I have a few questions even after reading the article in Wayne's book. I'm installing sport shocks on all four. I finished the rears. Any help before I screw things up will be appreciated.

1) The rear shocks have a rubber bump stop inside the dust cover, the fronts don't. Should they have bump stops also?

2) The old Boge sequence is shock, then metal ring, then rubber donut bushing, then shock tower, followed by another rubber bushing, then metal bushing and nut. The new Bilstein's only came with a small rubber washer on the shaft and a new nut. Do I need to keep the old bushings and reinstall them or are the Bilsteins designed to work without them?

3) Wayne's book talks about a pin at the bottom of Bilstein struts. Since I have Boge's, am I correct that all I need to do is screw the new shock into the old strut?

4) For those of you that bought Bilsteins, did the spanner wrench for installing the shocks come with them? I did not get one in my box.

5) Most importantly, how do you get the strut rotated outward to clear the fender? Since the car is suported by the torsion bar, the wheels don't hang freely as on the rear.

thanks

[Roland Kunz]

Hello

1.) Yes but on the late Bilsteins the strut is upside down and the stop inside the strut.

2.) AFIR if you have a assembly you have to reuse the old parts. the rubberwasher and the nut have to be renewed.

3.) Depending on your strut. If you have assemblys you reuse the old struts. You "just" swivel out the strut and leave the lower ball joint togehter.

4.) In germany they come seperate since years. But the cheap tin tool was replaced by a more solid ( reusable ) one.

5.) Lift front end complete loose rear torsion bar and remove caps.
Remove brake hose.
Press down struts and open the big nut holding the assembly one turn.
Remove nut from strut inside the trunk.
Pull/Press out the piston and swivel the strut out.
Check if you have enough room if not "steer" out to clear or remove the steering rod link.
Insert gasstrut and all parts.
When you swivel back in you need some force to hold the piston down. If you have not enough hight do go back in then you need a big wood as lever. push it into the A from the trailing arm and push down the complete arm to clear the fenderarche while you swivel back.
Guide the piston into the hole. Best is to have a long threaded bar or screw insertet trough the upper struttower and screwed into the piston then just guide it and some wiggeling will help sliping up the piston. If you can place the nut just screw it down some threads.

After doing that on both sides just rebuild everything and place the frontend on the floor and torque down the upper nuts drive some meters and set the front end hight.

Grüsse

[autobonrun]

Thanks for the info. I was surprised that the inserts in my Boge struts were gas type. I did find that they were leaking. I thought these were OEM's, but I don't know if gas shocks were standard in 79. Still, they are much easier to compress than the new Bilstein sports. Don't know if it is the stiffness of the Bilsteins or the fact that the Boge's were leaking or both. Getting them inside the fender well will be a real challenge. The ride will definitely be much tighter. By the way, do you know what the torque on the top bolts should be?

I just put a reasonable amout of force on the rear since there's no way to get a torque wrench on the rear bolts; they are too close to the back wall.