kenkaru

I am in the midst of a shock/spring swap. I'm putting in some Hotchkis springs and Strano revalves. I'm really looking forward to this after driving on stock shocks with cut springs for 4 years. (seriously!)

So anyway, the driver perch came off no problem. I was able to unscrew the nut and everything.

The passenger side, however, was all corroded and garbage so I cut the nut off, expecting it to then come apart but the spring perch was actually completely frozen on the the strut shaft. I thought, "well it's not threaded or anything" and I wacked it with a sledghammer a few dozen times and it didn't budge. Next, I cut the strut shaft and put it on the the press and gave it 3 TONS; again, it didn't budge. I was pretty surprised but I started drilling. It wouldn't have been that bad if I wasn't working with a slipping air drill and dull bits but eventually, I got about an inch of the shaft drilled out so I dropped a bolt in the hole and took it back to the press. This time, it took about 1 ton and it popped out.

It sucked and took me about as long messing with the perch as it did for the complete driver side swap. I did a little search in the middle of the project and it looks like less than one percent of people have this problem.

I guess I'm just lucky.

Viper

iTrader: (6)

Congrats, and remember to put grease on the new shock assembly so it doesn't happen again in the future. Like marine grease.

kenkaru

Crap! I put some on the shaft but later forgot to put it on the nut! It's ok though I guess since I plan on replacing the perches next time anyway since they were in rough shape.

ultraz

iTrader: (4)

lol, i had teh same problem. used tons of wd40 style solvent/cleaner and lots of pressure between the nut and rubber boot. Then at the same time hit it with the air gun.

kenkaru

Ahhh. hitting it with air gun is a good idea to get it to free up even if you know the nut isn't coming off. rattle some of that rust loose. good tip right there.

Boodyrider

iTrader: (2)

Yeah, I was gonna swap just one spring, since the PO put some wierd spring 1" lower than the other 3 corners... and it looks like whatever he grabbed the spring from, he got it complete with the associated DeCarbo strut. Strut perch rusted to the strut shaft, nut just a ball of rust, and no movement with an air hammer and the nut off... so I took the opportunity to order Bilstien HDs and new perches from Sam Strano. I'm street only, stock spring height (yes, i found another matching PN spring for the wierd one), so it was the most cost effective... and I can always swap the Bilsteins onto my 94 if I go with Konis for the 98!

Note: Arlyn told me that if you DO need to replace the perch, OEM is the only ones that fit the Konis or the Bilsteins. The KYB (and possibly most or all other aftermarket perches) have too small a hole for the larger shaft on the Bilstein and Koni struts compared to the DeCarbons.

kenkaru

I got Bilstein's and Hotchkis. It's sick sick sick. I expected a big difference but it's more than I was hoping for.