Strut job

[Devin]

I'm having a difficult time replacing my front struts. I took the struts out when the subframe was dropped and the subframe is now mounted to the body and I cannot reinstall the struts. I knocked them into the knuckles farther than I should have I think (the weld on the strut's pinch bolt ****** is at the top of the knuckle sleeve). I cannot for the life of me get the knuckle to go down far enough to allow the strut to access the tower!

Any ideas?

 

[Mr95Gl]

I can't quite picture what your trying to do. They way we've done it is to catch the strut with the 3 nuts on the shock tower, and press down on the knuckle enough so that you can slide the strut over, and into it. Is this what your trying to do, but can't push down on the knuckle enough? A long metal bar usually works.

 

[shomesomesho]

Use a floorjack.

 

[Devin]

With the strut and the spring assembled and pushing down on the strut as far as I can manually the strut cannot clear the body to get into the tower. It looks like I need to get the unit about four inches or so lower before it will clear the body. I took the black vacuum box off the driver side of the body so I could get the strut into the knuckle. Do I need to detach the outer tie rod from the knuckle to get it to go lower?

 

[rudedog]

Pull the knuckle off of the lower control arm. You're putting the ball joint into a bind. Then set the strut into the top 3 holes finger tight, then load it into the knuckle, then pry the lower control arm so the knuckle will locate back onto the ball joint stud. That should give you ALL the working room you'll need.

 

[Devin]

Ahh. I get it. Is that the normal procedure?

 

[baySHO_510]

I just replaced my struts today... I removed the lower control arm from the subframe & I removed the the rod that goes from the lower control arm to the subrame. That allowed me to move the spindle around as much as I needed.

 

[Devin]

I think what is throwing me off is that I had changed the front struts in my 87 GL and all I had to remove was the top three nuts.