shock and spring help

[tahoward]

Need to put new shocks on and neew some advice. Do you have any tips on removing the shocks? Someone told me that a special tool was needed for the top nut and that a spring compressor was needed also. After a quick glance it appears that it would be an external compressor, But what do I know! Much appreciate all help and horror stories too!

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

The "special wrench" is needed for the fronts. It's a "spanner" with two pins that go into the holes on the nut on top of the insert. Or, if you're careful and don't care about chewing up the edges of the nut, you can use a pipe wrench.

The rears require a spring compressor, if you have stock springs. Essentially if you jack the car up so that the rear wheels are off the ground, and the springs are not flopping around loose, you need to use a compressor. I'm not sure what you mean by an "external" compressor. I'm talking about two gizmos with hooks at each end and a nut that you tighten to bring the two ends closer together. That will allow you to compress the spring, so you can remove the nuts that hold the spring onto the strut.

I used a couple of different wrenches to R&R the rear struts. I forget the size of the nut for the bottom spring mounting bolt, but it's pretty large. A socket wouldn't fit onto the nut, so I used an open-end wrench. I don't remember if a closed-end one would have worked or not. I used an adjustable "crescent" wrench on the upper nut (that doesn't really look like a nut).

To do the fronts, I needed a friend to hold the roadwheel steady while I loosened that retaining nut with the pipe wrench. You'll have to undo the top (up in the front trunk), push the top of the strut down, swing it out of the fender so you can pull the cover off, then re-insert the strut rod so you can get good enough leverage to undo that retaining nut. Then you can collapse the strut again and swing it out of the fender well, and pull it out of the strut housing.

The rears were easier, if more time consuming, and were no problem to do by myself.

--DD