I'm lookin for someone who knows how to install springs who has time on saturday (any time) or on friday afternoon. I'd be willing to pay around $80-100 or so. \
-John

 

where you at?

 

Mountain View, 94041

 

It would acually have to be on saturday.

 

how much money are we talkin? I have done subaru springs about 8 times now and am pretty well seasoned installing and removing with a basic alignment.
I am busy this week and weekend though so it would have to be next week before I could help.

 

It turns out, on saturday a couple friends and I are going to give it a shot. Reading all the tutorials it seems pretty straight forward and doubt it's as hard as installing my uppipe was. If for any reason we can't install the springs on saturday, I'll let you know and maybe we can work out a price =).
-John

 

Its actually pretty easy. I think the harderst part is keeping the strut from spinning while trying to get the tophat off. Heres what I did...

get a strong pair of clamping pliers (I forget the "real" name...but you know what I mean...the ones that lock) and put them on the socket (17mm?) and you'll see that the bolt the nut is on has a spot for an alen wrench...stick an alen wrench in there and hold it with another pair of pliers.....you should be able to get the nut off and the tophat with come right off

good luck

 

hey can ya let me kno how it goes... ive been tryin to install mine for months now and after one failed attempt-we couldnt get the bolts loose even with an air gun! they've jsut been takin up room! tia
leah

 

Thanks for the advice and I'll let ya know how it goes after the install on sat. So to my understanding, I need to put a 6mm allen in the inner screw, then unscrew the nut around that while the allen is secure. Also, I read that I should first loosed the middle 17mm bolt on the tophat before I take the struts off, is this true?
-john

 

we can always help.. PM me so I can give you a no hassle price that I cannot post.lol...or bring in the struts and I can shoot it loose with an air gun and assemble it for $40 flat rate. Then you take back and install it. Ding !



gino

 

Tools needed:
12mm deep wall socket (top hat nuts, ABS, and brake lines. DO NOT OVER TORQUE! only 14lbs needed)
17mm deep wall socket (strut top nut)
1/2" drive 19mm deep wall socket ( nut side of the above 2 bolts)
19mm open end wrench (bolt side of the 2 bolts at the bottom of the strut)
1/2" drive breaker bar
1/2" torque wrench
Impact gun if you can get it(harbor freight has then for $50) otherwise you'll need vice grips for the 17mm socket and a long T hand allen wrench for whatever size the strut top is.
1 jack
2 jack stands

Jack up the front lifting both sides of the car, otherwise the sway bar will prevent the hub from going down enough to get the strut assembly out.
take off both wheels.
loosen all six tophat nuts.

Unbolt the bottom two bolts (on the front the top bolts are camber adjustment so turn only the nut, not the bolt. The bolt has a lobe that moves the hub around to adjust +/- camber. When the degree markers on this top bolt are facing towards the engine on both sides the camber is negative. With the degree markers facing outward away from the car it is possitive.)

it helps to have a 3/8" drive deep 19mm for this and a 3/8" ratchet, or just a 1/2" drive ratchet.

pull out the strut assembly carefully, do not tug on the brake or ABS lines with the strut ears.

I personally do not use spring compressors, but if you have them put them on the front struts hand tight. This will prevent the strut top from shooting the strut off and hitting someone or your car.
Now begin loosening the 17mm nut on top of the strut. I would try having someone with strong small hands push up the plastic cover and hold on to the strut shaftwhile you turn the top bolt.
This is the part that takes for bloody ever if you don't have an impact gun. A friend and I did it this way once and it wound up being over 4 hours to get all 4 struts done.

Once the tophat nut is off, you might need to tap the tophat a little to get it to come off. the front springs usually load enough that they will cause the dome shaped washer to kind of latch on to the shaft.

Once the spring is off, put the new spring, spring top, dome washer, and top hat on. Usually one person will just push the spring mount and dome washer over the strut while the other person puts the tophat on and screws the nut on.

The spring top has three holes in it, the center most outer hole should be pointing at the strut ear. Look at the strut assembly before taking it apart to see what I am talking about.

Now get the nut tightened down to the same depth that it was at before on the strut threads (measure before and after).
Put it all back together now! remember the camber bolts go in the top with that thick copper washer. spin the camber bolt a few times so you can see it move the top of the hub in and out, keep in mind the degree markers should be facing the engine to add negative camber.

Remember to use the ratchet to only tighten the three top nuts just enough to be tight, they don't need a lot of torque. For the first time I actually snapped one helping a friend. Luckily I have noltec plates up front and pulled out one of my stock bolts. Talk about a pain in the ***! its not really a bolt, you have a fine tooth spline at the top of the "bolt" that has to be pressed in. I had to hold the spline side of the bolt up with pliers and tightened a nut on to press the bolt in.

Anyways, fiinish the front.

The rears are much easier as long as you are not adding camber bolts. the top hats are much easier to get off as well, and only one person is really needed to swap the spring out. it does help to have someone screw on the three top nuts.

Good luck!

 

You can't get to the top 17mm bolt without taking the strut out. What makes that bolt hard is that the inner part of the strut moves with it while the outer part of the strut stays still. Although, you may get lucky, on one of my rear struts I got the nut of easily....the onther one took a few swear words till it would budge

 

air gun is your friend... or get one of those cheap electric impact gun from Harbor Frieght and wish it will knock the top nut loose. Don't even try the impact gun on the rear bolts, it needs a long *** breaker bar to knock them loose, think about 3 ft +, and using your legs on the breaker bar helps.

 

I'd be careful about using the impact gun on the spring compressors. It is too easy for them to get out of ballance (you want equal tension on both sides of the spring, obviously). I've done it both ways and found that if you use a ratchet it is much easier.

 

Thanks for all the replies, it'l all come very handy. I just dunno how im gunna do this 17mm nut. I have an air gun but am a bit sceptical on using it because I have destroyed things in the past =P. How much are u supposed to torque the 17mm nut too and is the allen screw to adjust the camber? Sorry for noob question =)
-John