Do the front tokico struts come in a locked down positon?

[SolidState]

if so, how are they released? the rear have a red strap on them, but the fronts nothing...

 

[Yamaha V6]

Look for a metal "friction" style clip - clipped over the edge of the housing, with a hole that allows it to slide down over the shaft. If it has them, you push the shaft down a little to alleviate the tension on the clip, and slip it off the edge of the housing & straight up the shaft. From the side it'd look like an upside down "7".

 

[DHMag]

i believe mine were released by compressing and turning the valve rod clockwise.

 

[SolidState]

nope, nothing....I tried rotating them, and there is no clip.

is it possible they came fully extended?

EDIT:

here are some reference pics

this is the way they came out of the box:

does this look right? I cut 1.5 coils of both springs:

my finished product:

 

[sdpatt]

You probably answered your own question when you removed the red strap off the other strut. The strap allowed the strut to fit in a shorter box. If the front struts came in a longer box, then they must have been extended. If the box was the same length as that for the rear struts, something was holding the shaft in a slightly compressed position.

From your photos, the lower spring pad is not installed and could result in wear and rusting at the lower spring perch. Those pads are there for a reason.

 

[SolidState]

please excuse my ignorance, scott....which pad are you referring to? I am looking at my manual and it doesn't mention anything of the sort...spring isolator perhaps?

the boxes themselves are the same length, but there is significantly more of the strut shaft showing on the front struts. I played with them a bit, but to no avail. Everything seems to have fit, but I'll have someone a little more experienced have a look at them...

 

[shojuan]

Mine had straps holding all 4 down. Guess different packaging for different people. What Scott's getting at is the the springs are supposed to have rubber insulators on both ends. The strut mounts have rubber up top and the springs rest on seperate rubber insulators on the bottom. Just reuse your exisitng ones if they are in ok shape. Clean them up first and spray 'em with some silicone spray if you want them nice and shiny looking (for a couple of weeks, lol!) The rear struts also have rubber insulators that slide onto the coils. You want those. So keep your old ones and install. Yes, they look cheesy and ugly. George Fourchy's tried it without them and claims nasty sounds are the result.

 

[SolidState]

thanks rick. I want to have the struts and springs all put together before I take the old ones off the car.

I'll look around for some insolators...

 

[SHO92]

I don't have the wrap around the rear springs and I have never had any bad sounds come from them. It would really only make bad sounds if you were getting coil bind or having rocks thrown up at the springs and making them "ring". I like to avoid both situations, so I've never had bad sounds come from them. Hopefully you didn't take everything apart to install the wrap on the rear springs.
You should be able to pull the strut shaft to the full uncompressed height of the strut, by hand. If the shaft is long enough to allow the springs and mounts to be installed, they probably are fully uncompressed. The shaft should be pretty difficult to compress.

 

[SolidState]

everything seemed to fit, so I left it.

I have talked to a few people and they have foregone the insolators without any problems, so I am just going to let it be. I would salvage the ones from the original struts (at 175k), but I don't want to take the struts apart...