Alright, I've been riding on the unshortened Konis for long enough. I am getting sick of them.

Background: tried to shorten a single Koni insert, wound up shortening it too much and stripping out the threads.

Solutions:

a) buy a bottoming tap and hope the sucker holds (I won't get into it but there are more complications to this as well)
b) somehow weld the sucker(s) in.

Thing about welding struts obviously is that there's plenty of heat involved, and the seals could get ruined, even if the welder is careful and takes his time, lets it cool etc.

The bright side of it is, depending on how I wanted to do it, I could shorten them more than they would be with a traditional shortening. Either way I am using up a set of strut casings, so I might as well go all out, remove the bottom of the casing and poke 'em out the bottom; maybe shorten them as much as 1-1.25" (not too much obviously as I don't want topping out problems, and I don't want to hit the CV boot), then weld it to the casing. If I did it this way though there would be less metal to insulate the internals from the heat of the welding, since I'd have to weld on the sides of the strut instead of the bottom.

Thoughts please.

 

The other downside of welding a gas strut is that it might explode.

 

Yeah, I was thinking of that, but I wouldn't be the one doing the welding.

Also: I doubt there is any oxygen in the strut

 

 

good thing the Konis are a hydraulic damper and not a gas charged strut.

what I did with mine after cutting the threads off the end was use the rubber boot things that came with my inserts and use them as a spacer, pressing them into the strut housings with the strut. I then carefully welded the small amount of end bushing thingy left tot he bottom of the strut.

one other thing you could do is to put a sleeve/collar over the top of the strut that holds it in place and then weld the sleeve to the strut housing. that would keep you form welding onto the strut directly.

 

Yeah, but they still have gas in them, no?

I never figured out what the little "spacers" were, they never seemed to fit anywhere.

What I really would like to do is cut off the bottom "cap" of the casing entirely and poke the insert through, then a few tacks around the bottom of the casing to the circumference of the insert.

 

All dampers are filled with hydraulic fluid, all are gas charged as well.
The gas charge (Nitrogen?) stops the hydraulic fluid from foaming. The gas charge has nothing to do with ride control. The fluid and the valving does that. If the gas charge is lost, the fluid will foam and the strut will fail as you drive.

 

I haven't done anything yet but I really like this idea. I'd have to cut the housing to juust the right length, and make sure it was a straight cut so I wouldn't get any wearing and slight rattling down the line

I'd have to make the collars though, get some metal piping with the appropriate ID then weld on a disc or something at the top, then I guess hold em on with a huge clamp while we welded... hmm

 

Check your facts again.
The Konis are not gas charged- at least not the ones we're discussing here.
http://www.koni-na.com/faq.cfm

 

curious bump...what ever happened with these?!

 

Still pondering as to what to do. I don't have a welder, I know someone who has a stick welder but he's emo and does stuff half-assed so I don't really want to ask him. I could pay a shop to do it but I don't want to spend another hundred bucks on this. Add the fact that my front suspension is ratting around since I cut the strut casings too short for the unshortened konis and you have a bit of a dilemma.

I am thinking of just shortening the other koni and getting a bottoming tap for the first one whose threads I stripped. I picked up another set of stock struts to dissect so they won't friggin' rattle any more.

 

ARen't these bolted up though the bottom of the strut? Why weld anything? If they are the bottom thread/bolt type, just pull the koni and retap the threads.

 

Tried retapping. Got about a half a revolution to a revolution of good thread because I used a normal "tapered" tap. Need a much more aggressive one that will tap to the bottom of the hole.

Welding would allow me to push the insert further down the casing for even more travel (and would get rid of the tapping dilemma), but I am beginning to worry about mashing the front of the car/LTB2 down before the strut bottoms out (which used to happen with the reds).

 

Yup. go too short and that's what you'll run into. make sure you have good bumpstops and don't drive over stoopid huge bumps and it won't happen though.

I've trimmed my Koni Reds down like that and the car will scrape the LTB on huge dips.. but any time I hit something that big, it's because I'm doing something stupid and wouldn't drive over it that fast on even a stock car if I was paying attention.

 

I'm not lowered enough (yet) for that to be a concern...but if your LTBs are scraping, that means my headers would scrape
I wish I could have a LTB to protect my headers....well and for the "precious front end composure," right Morpheus?

I'm trying to come up with a way to shorten the konis (even though I don't have any yet...) without having to cut them. Basically, I'd just have to get the insert to sit lower in the OEM housing....right? Is there a way one could just cut out the bottom of the OEM housing and weld on a "cap" of sorts that is ~1" lower? Say for instance, the piece that gets cut off the top of the strut for pulling the guts out. Maybe someone could flip that upside down and weld it to the bottom of the OEM housing...

Any thoughts?

I'd much rather find a way to make the insert sit lower than have to cut it and void the warranty...

Oh, and BTW...I was looking at Koni's app chart. I noticed that they DO have the 95-99 Maxima yellows listed as gas charged...link. Search for Maxima, obviously, then there is a little circled G, which the legend says, means gas charged.

 

Damn straight son!

You probably do not want to extend the bottom of the strut as it already sits very close to the CV boot and will make contact and rip it up if you extend it much further.

I suppose there is a way you can shorten them just a bit without cutting them, but it would be quite a PITA:



The old yellows as well as reds are definitely oil filled. Ask me how I know.

Gas charged in this case means that instead of air there is pressurized nitrogen (4-8 times atmospheric pressure) in the shock. Oil is still what flows through the valves and primarily what dictates the overall damping; the gas is just there as sort of a buffer and to extend the shock when off the car (and I have heard to stop the oil from foaming, although I don't understand how it could do that).

 

It may be possible to lower the new konis in the housing without cutting the bottom off. The newer Konis have less threads, so less poke out. They also use an allen head bolt which is smaller. I have a jig to check clearances and its close, very close. My old yellows would never make it fully poking out. When I did a few sets for org members I was surprised in the newer design. I only cut off 1/4" or so. The older ones I cut about 3/8"-1/2". Unfortunately I dont have any new Konis laying around to fit on my car and test.