I'm having a crazy time realigning the strut bolts in trying to get my springs/struts back in. What's crazy, is I've done this before and don't remember having an issue...

Can anyone lend some guidance as to how I get the bolts back in? I've seen mention of a big punch being used to align the holes... can anyone give some advice?

 

Push up on the strut to try and align the bolt as best you can and wiggle it till it goes through.

 

The car has to be level. Yeah. Also... try to use a floor jack to move the hub up and down.

P.S. Doesn't have to be level, but it helps though.

 

nm, got it!

 

Cool, cool.

 

cant be worse than me stripping my top strut nut

 

lol^^^

 

ouch. This is what I was worried about, since pulling down that top nut against the spring was making me nervous...couldn't get the spring compressors to get small enough to take the load off the nut. An impact gun is what you really need to do it, so I let kevin @ autohq take care of it