I was finally able to loosen and remove the lower bolts on the rear struts. Stock struts were removed and I thought I was home free. Of course, there is always something... I compressed the spring and then tried to remove the top bolt once the pressure was gone, but it is not breaking free. However, it is turning the strut piston; the polished part of the strut. It just keeps spinning and spinning. What can I do to break this top bolt free?? Please help soon! I have no transportation as of now!

Thanks a lot for any help.

 

sorry for bumpin so quickly, but i really need help with this. can I put a vise grip on the strut piston to keep it from turning? I put a bar up near the top to hold the mount but the piston still spins.

any help at all is appreciated!!

 

I had trouble getting mine off too,i used lots of wd40 and i had to torch it off and use a vise scrip to hold dwn the piston from spinning..took about 40mins to get it off for me. goodluck!

 

yeah, i guess i'll have to do that. did you mark up the piston because if that happens, they are definitely worthless and will blow immediately. but that is fine, considering i am putting Illuminas in. I sprayed liquid wrench on them a while ago and am just letting them sit now.

oh, also, what is the proper technique for torching? i have a bernz-o-matic. will that work? how hot do I want it to get? is torching bad for the assembly at all?

thanks

 

unsure about proper technique on torching,but i just heated up only the bolt for a couple mins, and use a breakerbar with the wrench..worked for me.,dont know if its bad for it,i havnt had any problems

 

the bolt? or the nut at the to of the assembly? i suppose i'll have to just try it. thanks for the quick replies, but...

any other advice?

 

just grab the top portion of the piston with vice-grips and than try to loosen up the nut, spray some PB blaster as well, it should work this way,
if you end up rounding off the top portion of strut piston, don't worry about it.
Grab the piston itself with good set of vice grips and try to brake the nut loose.

good luck

Nick.

 

if that don't work, relieve the pressure from the spring compressor and then try to break the nut loose, don't take it off completly, just brake it loose
rear stock spring don't have that much tension on them anyway ( just be carefull)

Nick.

 

that's a good though to do it without the spring compressors (that's what your saying, right?) as long as i just get it goin and break the rust, i can always compress it and not worry about a spring to the chest.

-------->to the garage!!!

(damn, I need a laptop!)

 

sorry for off topic. How did you end up getting the lower bolt loose? I wasw trying to get mine off today with no luck

 

oh gawd! i don't even want to talk about that, but here goes:
I dropped the front after what seemed a short amount of time (for me at least; it was my first real big mod after intake, y-pipe, etc. (little stuff)). Anyway, I then jacked up the rear to see this rust bolt/nut staring me in the face. I gave it a try with a long breaker bar but ended up just turning the nut also (even though it is in that little horseshoe thing that allows it to self tighten I guess.) I was frusterated and it was late so I called it a night. eventually I realized I had rounded the nut off so much that I would have to take it to a shop in order to get it off. A few days later, I found one that would not only loosen them but also replace the nut and bolt for only $30. It was nice to have them replaced so that I would have less trouble when I went home to install the struts myself. So when I get home, I was shocked to see the stock bolts still there, and even still, I could not even loosen them with a breaker bar! just kept spinning! I took it back and the guy was quite an @$$ about it so finally after arguing with him, he just gave in and asked me how I wanted to fix the problem. He said there is no way they would replace the bolt being it would be a special order part and I would have to bring it in. So I said fine, I'll get the part and then come back and have you put them in free of charge this time. He agreed. So 3-5 business days later, the nuts and bolts come in at Nissan for a reasonable total of $6. I go to the shop and handed over the parts. A few minutes later, the guys call me out to lifts and show me that the bolt cannot be replaced without removing the brake assembly and such, which the tech will not do for $30. this is bull****. The guy was kinda nice about it and said that if I wanted, I could bring in the struts and have them install them for a great reduced rate. It was tempting, but I said I'll go home and try and take care of things myself. So I get home, and immediately Liquid Wrench the nut. Still spinning. Then I try to hammer at it with a chizel. No luck. Then I tried to torch it as best I could. Helped a little bit, but only turned 1/8 of a turn, then just kept spinning. So finally, I wipped out the dremel and began to cut the nut in half parallel to the bolt, hoping it will just break open. This took a while, but worked for me! i was so relieved!


I'm a little bit worried about reinstall as the part that contains the nust so that it will self tighten only by turning the bolt is really bent outta shape and will not hold the nut with enough force. Should I just break that off and then just tighten the nut and bolt by hand? I would think that it would be a safe alternative to rounding off a new nut.

Hopefully you won't have as much trouble as me, and sorry for the long story. The whole situation made me so frusterated and I needed a good rant.

 

well, I was able to get one strut apart so far and decided to just install the new Illumina before goin to the other one. I had one quick question though: with the new KYB dustbots, it the bumpstop part suppossed to just sit loosely on the skinnier-diameter part of the strut piston, or be forced down so it it firmly holding onto the larger-diameter part of the strut piston??

 

just bumpin for help on these KYB boots. any takers?

 

the dustboot should hug that lip on the piston, and pretty much be flush with it. THen you take that round metal piece from the stock strut and slide that on the piston to rest atop the bumpstop. then the bushing goes over that. The way to get the top nut off is to use a vise grip on top. that's why it is notched the way it is.

Air tools are a HUGE help in doing struts/springs. I was lucky enought to have a shop to install mine in. THey had a nice wall mounted spring compressor and air tools. Took me about 3 hours to do the whole thing and it was my first time.