kongse

Hello all. I'm in the middle of replacing my front strut assemblies (shocks are shot). It's not a terribly difficult job so far ... but I'm stuck getting the strut assembly back under the fenders. After two hours, I've managed to completely mangle the fender but can't get this back in. It's a total PITA but for the life of me, can't get it in there!



I got the old assembly out by removing the screws at the top mount assembly ... the new one has screws already "embedded" and they're not easy to take out. It feels like I'm deforming the metal of the mount while trying to take them out, so I stopped trying.

Is the only way to do this properly is to remove the upper / lower control arms and tie rod arm? If I go this route, will I have any difficulties getting the control arm and tie rod arm assemblies back into place? Let me know if anyone has tried this ...

Thanks for your help

Bill109

have you tried seating the top of the struts into the strut tower and removing the bottom half of the strut out of the spindle?
that added room when it sits in the strut tower will do it.
guide the bottom of the strut back into the spindle at the bottom and use the weight of the car to seat them properly into the spindle.
so reverse of what your doing..

kongse

You know, I didn't even think of that!

My methodology came from the DIY section. Ultimately, I loosened the tie rod and control arm nuts just enough to give me the added 1/4" of wiggle room that I needed. I'll definitely try your method on the passenger side and see if I can avoid more fender scratches.

From what I've heard, my M-sport suspension is just more painful to install than a standard suspension because of the smaller tire/fender gap. But I'll let you know which method works better.

Thanks for your help

audiophool

If you're hell-bent on doing it this way (which I've never encountered in 30 years of wrenching BTW), how about spring compressors to shorten the assembly a bit?

ODB

It will fit if you put the spring compressor back on. Good luck