Remove Front Struts ....easy ?

moriwaki · January 4, 2010

Travelling at around 65 and suddenly a BIG Bang.....front of car dropped suddenly and I thought I'd had a blow out....but there was no loss of control and no noises...

pulled over and front of car was almost totally collapsed on to the front tyres....front right tyre was just clearing the inner arch protector....broken spring me thinks.....

so limped home at 40 with the car sniffing the ground like Pimp Daddys Chrome wheeler....when I got home I investigated and found the lower spring SEAT had come away fron the strut body !...

bottom of spring was resting on the track control arm....

there seemed to be no rust that I could tell....seemed a major failure that I've not seen since my TR8 days....

Anyone had this happen ?.....and is it an easy removal DIY proposition ?....looks easy enough on the tutorials....but why split the ball joint on the upper wishbone ?...

is actual damper an insert ?....or complete unit with shock body ?

Thanks again lads !

steve2006 · January 4, 2010

Getting the complete assembly off is fairly easy follow the lexls tutorial.

Removing and refitting the spring ( or in your case just refitting) requires a spring compressor.

If you have a friendly local garage it may be better to take the whole strut to them and ask them to fit the spring to the new one.

Below is a link showing the various components of the strut.

http://www.lextreme.com/ascon.htm

ROYT · January 5, 2010

if you do the job yourself, GET SOME SUBSTANTIAL SPRING COMPRESSORS, THE SPRINGS ARE LONG AND STRONG!!

[you can hold the strut in a vice, don't squash it, put some lead flashing or similar to line the jaws]

ManicMark · January 5, 2010

Travelling at around 65 and suddenly a BIG Bang.....front of car dropped suddenly and I thought I'd had a blow out....but there was no loss of control and no noises...
pulled over and front of car was almost totally collapsed on to the front tyres....front right tyre was just clearing the inner arch protector....broken spring me thinks.....

so limped home at 40 with the car sniffing the ground like Pimp Daddys Chrome wheeler....when I got home I investigated and found the lower spring SEAT had come away fron the strut body !...

bottom of spring was resting on the track control arm....

there seemed to be no rust that I could tell....seemed a major failure that I've not seen since my TR8 days....

Anyone had this happen ?.....and is it an easy removal DIY proposition ?....looks easy enough on the tutorials....but why split the ball joint on the upper wishbone ?...

is actual damper an insert ?....or complete unit with shock body ?

Thanks again lads !

Hi why not contact benfur on here, he should have a complete unit from a low miles mark3 for a good price (will save you a lot of trouble) a straight bolt off bolt on job, cant see why you would have to split the ball joint.

moriwaki · January 8, 2010

Turned out I also broke the lower coil on the spring....so the spring broke and took out the lower seat too....cold weather and 198.000 miles ?....

I have bought both sides and will give it a go over the wekend...

£132 each for the stuts from Lexus...£127 per spring....soon adds up eh ?....

What a miss it has been over the last week....

moriwaki · January 9, 2010

Got it done lads......oor lass helped me and we spent this afternoon in sub zero temperatures to finish both sides....new springs struts and discs while I was in there.

Looking forward to a drive tomorrow to see what its like.

Thanks for replies fellas.