2003-2011 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
The Koni's for the NG900's came with replacement hold down nuts, these were round and you needed a bit pin wrench for them. These were hard to tighten down. These also came with a plastic rubber washer to go on top of the nut so that the bump stop would not damage itself on the holes in the nut for the pin wrench.
It was very obvious upon inspection that the Koni nuts fitted the struts inserts and that the OEM nuts were obviously unsuitable. Would allow the top of the strut insert to wander I believe. ?Perhaps putting the chromed shaft in danger?
Perhaps someone did not use the Koni nuts because they did not have a pin wrench.
With the Koni nuts, if you do not get them tight enough, you can get a lot of knocking when cold but as the shock warms and expands, for a while, that stops.
Koni also wanted 50CC of engine coolant in the strut tube as a heat coupling fluid. Coolant can degrade! So I used engine oil.
When I redid my struts and to tighen down the Koni nuts, I degreased the nuts and the threads in the strut tube, and fitted the nuts with with a lot of loctite blue. I used a vice-grip chain wrench on the nut and whacked that with a dead blow hammer to get it tight after getting arm-tight. No problems after that. Talked to Koni tech support about this, there are no pin wrenches avialable in this market area of the type shown in there cartoon non-language instructions. One would have to contruct one. The holes for the pins are sized for 6mm pins.
Part of the problem with the koni nuts getting loose is the paint on the struts. This paint, on the end(s?) will yeild and that looses some of the preload. So perhaps the paint should be removed before assembly.
In general, paint or such in a high strength threaded joint assembly needs to be avoided. One exception is when spar varnish or another such is applied to the joint as a sealant and the joint is fully torqued before that sealant has a chance to dry. Sometimes a joint needs to be free of that or any grease or oil to develop a high shear (friction) strength as the only way to keep shear loads off of the threaded fasteners which should never be subjected to shear loads. I have not seen these details discussed in an automotive service manual for decades.
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