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1998 900S 2.3, 5-door.
Rears were a breeze to replace. Very easy. Easier than C900. I did not raise the car. Had zero problems, everything went very smoothly. Old shocks seemed fine. Still had plenty of gas pressure and shock shaft had a lot of resistance. Even compared with the new units. However, driving the car with new rear shocks made it very obvious that the old ones had completely worn out. Wow, what a difference! Much better turn in, excellent feel. Excellent bump control.
Sunday morning, on to the fronts. This is the hardest strut replacement I have ever done. It took me the whole day to do just one side. Granted, I did not start very early and it gets dark around 5 pm. And I had to drive to Sears TWICE to get tools. Still, it should not be this hard. I had a lot of trouble with the ball joint. I attampted to remove the whole suspension arm, which was not too hard. However, as soon as I disconnected the front edge of it, I was able to move the strut assembly out far enough to slide out the driveshaft. After this, I had enough space to use the proper ball joint remover and was able to press out the ball joint. It took A LOT of pressure to snap free. I can't imagine being able to knock it out with a hammer or anything other than the proper tool. Same goes for the tie rod end, which took twice the pressure to remove. Thank god for proper tools.
Removing the brake rotor was very easy. I left the rotor shield attached.
Removing the strut cartridge "nut" was not easy. I tried a big pipe wrench -- no go. I went to Sears and got myself a nice chain wrench, per Dean's suggestion. Once I got it gripping, the nut gave way. Thanks, Dean!
The bottom spring seat, the aluminium one, was in very bad shape, so I was glad I got a replacement. The rest of the bits looked OK. Even the strut mount looked fine, with only very minor cracks in the rubber. The thrust bearing was smooth and looked perfectly fine. I don't like to do anything more than once, so I still replaced most of these parts with new ones. The only thing I left alone was the metal spring perch, the bellows/bump stop and the metal washers. I had very little trouble assembling the strut and securing the top nut. I used threadlocker on the big cartridge nut and used the chain wrench to screw it in as hard as I could. I don't think that was 214 N*m, though. I hope threadlocker will prevent it from becoming undone.
The rest of the install went well. I used new rubber bushings everywhere. Covered with 3M silicone paste ($16, NAPA.) I used new lock nuts everywhere. I damaged my T-40 socket while torqueing the top strut nut to 90 N*m -- that was rather strange. I hope I didn't screw up the strut shaft.
Body roll is almost gone now -- even with only 3 new dampers. The difference is much greater than I expected. Comfort is much improved, too. It is especially noticeable when going over speed bumps. Fourth corner will have to wait until next weekend.
I got all four Monroe Sensa-Tracs from shockwarehouse.com for only $181, including S&H. They are "Made in Belgium." I can't comment on their durability yet, but so far I am very impressed. I have used Sensa-Tracs in other cars before and I have nothing but the highest praise for them.
posted by 66.152.24...
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