911E hydropneaumatic struts

[campbell911]

I have a 1969 Porsche 911E hydropneaumatic strut front end I am trying to use on a 912 - 6 project. Koni still sells the conversion to convert them to strut style shocks with a rubber spacer as an adapter. My problem is getting the old center spring, inside sleeve and retaining collar out to give room for the strut. They are located about 6 inches down from the top of the strut.
I am sure lots of people have done this to keep the aluminum brakes with the 3 .5 bolt spacing.
Any ideas of how these parts can be taken out would be appreciated.
Thank you

[john walker's workshop]

you will also need both a-arms, crossmember, height adjusters and torsion bars. might as well just find a complete front suspension with normal struts, preferably boge or bilstein.

[campbell911]

Thanks John,
I have all that from the 912 front end. I want to use the hydropneumatic struts to pick up the 3.5 inch caliper spacing for the 912 front suspension.
Tom

[keith28]

A member of the PCA Ohio Valley Region once had an article published in The Bent Pylon(monthly club news)on the converting the self leveling struts themselves to normal struts.I will try to dig it out but I think it was in the 70's.I read it only quite recently though so I know I have it.

[campbell911]

Hi Keith,
Any luck finding the article?

[keith28]

Yes I found it(from March 1978)but is a bit lengthy to transcribe all so I will skip to the part I think you are stuck at:"Once the struts are removed from the car they must be gutted.First,slowly remove the two screws in the side of the cylinder to bleed off the internal gas.Then remove the end cap,drain the stinky oil, and take out everything you can.The upper half is easy,but the lower half is not.I had to improvise a puller rod with pins on it to grab the relief port orifice holes to extract the lower rod.The rubber cylinder may also offer problems but once the strut is cleaned out,the worst part is over.
Now machine the bottom piece so that it holds the bottom part of the shock concentric in the strut.This part is trapped by the shock and the pocket should be made to space the shock at the proper vertical height.I packed the space under the under the shock with silicone RTV to help distribute the load on the end of the shock.The top piece is then machined to hold the top concentric.It is important to have enough bearing surface between this piece and the inside diameter of the cylinder.However this part must protrude a little bit so that the end cap will sqeeze the parts together"
If you like i could email you the full article and accompanying drawings.I hope this helps!
Keith.

[campbell911]

Yes it will. Could you please send me a copy. Great! Thank you very much. I know it is probably crazy but still want to save original front end parts and use my aluminum calipers. I have been trying to remove the collar that they are referring to and have drilled it so I thought it would just pop out but apparently not yet.
I would be happy to send copies to others if they respond to this post
Thanks Keith. Send to:
Tom Campbell
651 Walker Road
Hilton, NY 14468

[campbell911]

Got it. Thanks Keith.