Just like the title says: How am I supposed to torque the top strut nut without having the shock's piston rod turn along too? I have the whole strut/spring assembly sitting there, waiting to be torqued, but whenever I try to wrench it, the piston rod turns too. I have a Craftsman socket set, and I can't figure this out. Please help me out, I want to get this done.

 

bump this mother up. Any suggestions will be appreciated, I really want to get this done tonight.

I would say if any clarification was needed I would re-explain, but no one's read this yet...

 

vise grips

 

well if its spinning its probably tight enough, or you reached the end of the threads

 

no they tend to spin when tightening

 

You only torque that nut to like 12 or 14ft-lb or so if my memory is correct, so I'd say if it's spinning it's probably as tight or tighter than it should be.

 

I installed mine first then I tightened the bolt.

 

hold the rod with a visegrip, tight the nut until it is flush with the rod end. Install the shock and tighten it completely, the top mount has a slot and will hold the rod in place without letting it move.

 

NEVER GRAB THE PISTON WITH VISE GRIPS!

The rears only need like 20 ft/lbs of torque. Just enough to compress the bushings a bit. If the shock spins, hold the nub on top and snug the nut.

The fronts need about 60 ft/lbs of torque. If the piston is spinning it means the notch in your upper mounts have rounded out and is no longer holding the piston. Honestly, I'd replace the mount if that were the case. An impact gun with short blasts will get the nut tight, but if the hole is already rounded it may round out larger which will lead to total mount failure and a loose strut piston banging around over bumps in the future.

If the strut piston spins, replace your front mounts.

 

ops i mena use a vise grip to hold the rod end LOL

 

As NJmax stated, this is a no-no and instantly voids your warranty on Tokico and most brand shocks. I personally use an air gun for that nut, don't get too crazy with an airgun though or you'll spin the threads right off the shock and ruin it.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

man vicegrips are the cheapest tool you can use when working on a car, all it'll do is strip **** and wha not, dont use a vice grip

 

Vise grip and table clamp are your best friends.

 

Are you running Koni inserts? There should be no reason why the notch in your strut mount should not hold the piston rod end (also notched) in place. People with Koni's have had to grind out that notch because the piston rod end on the insert is completely round. If the piston rod turning makes proper torquing difficult, wait until you need to loosen it ever--you will definitely need an air impact wrench.

 

i agree with this statement. same thiing happened to me wen installing my agx's. took me an hour to figure out why it was spinning...so i decided to change the both front mounts and it tightened properly with no spinning. i was also using the vise grips which is a big no no

 

He's running AGX's with Canuck springs.

Good luck finishing up the install Lou. I ran into a few snags along the way too but it's all worth it once it's done!

 

Sorry for resurrecting a very old thread but this is exactly my dilemma. I am installing Koni SPR.T front struts and the shaft spins when I try to torque the top nut. I have used Vice Grips very tight at the top of the shaft and it still spins. (Note: the strut will never go that far up the shaft so it is safe to grab it there without risk of damaging the seal) As it turns out the shaft is so hard that the VGs don't even mar the shaft anyway. There is no Allen key at the top or other way to stop it from spinning even if I had one of the special tools designed to reach the nut with an Allen wrench in. The factory torque spec is actually quite high at 43 to 58 lb-ft. It has all new everything including the strut mount (KYB). I am hoping that since this thread was started in 2006, some other Max guys have found another solution. BTW, I have found about a half dozen official recommendations, like KYB, strongly against using an air gun to tighten this down. No suggestions on how to actually do it of course.

 

You're trying to torque it down uninstalled from the car?

Install it first and that should give you the hold you need....yes?

 

When I dealt with that on the gen 5.5 I used a impact gun. Tightening and loosening then checking torque with torque wrench. Took multiple tries but it worked for me

 

less likely to spin when loaded?

 

I had always wondered about that ... would the car resting on the springs and struts keep the strut shaft from spinning when you torqued it? I hadn't seen anyone suggest that on all the forums and other websites that popped up when I googled it. At this point, I think it's worth a try.

 

Although this makes sense to me too, there are gobs of resources that are adamant that you should never use an impact wrench. I also wonder why an impact wrench wouldn't also spin the strut shaft just like a regular socket wrench would. I'm glad it worked for you however.

 

first, I've always used impact and had no issues

second, because it's a quick blow off force, that will cause it to tighten where's by hand, you basically increase your pressure allowing it to spin before you reach optimal pressure. an analogy for this would be gas engine vs electric, one has instant torque while the other needs to wind up for maximum power

 

As is often the case, the people/entities that tell us not do something don't always tell us why. I suspect the damage to spinning the innards of the strut by using an impact wrench is the unknown the manufacturers don't want us finding out the hard way. It could also be that if you are too successful with tightening, you will compress a bunch of innards not designed to take that much abuse.

By holding the upper part of the shaft with the vice grips, I was able to tighten the nut quite a bit so it was a big help. The problem comes when I want to add enough twist to tighten up to the torque spec. I may still try your method, Daniel, if I don't get results using a less aggressive method.