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Just want to add my experience, in case anyone gets bit by the, “I can do it myself” bug like I did…..
Some struts, like my 1989 Honda Accord LXi, have coils that are so tight together that it is impossible to use any other kind of spring compressor. {Coils are so tight one can’t get the hooks, fork or clamp piece in between the coils to hook on the coil! (see pics) } In those cases, you will absolutely need this tool! Shoot even when I found one of these to borrow, the compression part was easy, but the strut nut misbehaved. Using any other kind of spring compressor and there would have been and “explosion.”
I’ll add that one thing Eric apparently didn’t encounter, while doing any of his strut videos, is what happened to me: the upper nut on the strut was “stuck” or frozen to the strut shaft. In this case, the impact wrench did nothing but spin the shaft and associated pieces inside of the cylinder. This is the “fun” I had. So on top of the strut where the nut is located I noted that the shaft has either a hole in the center for a hex key or has flat sides for a wrench or vice grips. Then the fun was placing an open faced wrench on the nut and using vice grips to hold the shaft – trying to break a recalcitrant nut without the help of the impact wrench. Not even putting a little tension (or most of it) on the assemble by uncompressing the spring worked! Just brute force and some heat from the “big red wrench.” So this tool was critical.
Imho, Eric is far too polite about this when he says he’s happy he no longer cringes when doing struts – <font color="#0044ff]these coils are down right dangerous.[/color] The way I think about this (rightly or wrongly) is that one coil supports at least 1/4 the total weight of the car! So that’s a lot of built up energy in that coil – all waiting to be released instantaneously if one slips up. Haven’t found any part of my body that can take that kind of “encounter” unscathed. So imho it is important to get this right – [color=#ff0000″>safety over ego! Get the right tool for the job – this is the right tool.
[quote=”CanDo807″ post=138626]Just want to add my experience, in case anyone gets bit by the, “I can do it myself” bug like I did…..
Some struts, like my 1989 Honda Accord LXi, have coils that are so tight together that it is impossible to use any other kind of spring compressor. {Coils are so tight one can’t get the hooks, fork or clamp piece in between the coils to hook on the coil! (see pics) } In those cases, you will absolutely need this tool! Shoot even when I found one of these to borrow, the compression part was easy, but the strut nut misbehaved. Using any other kind of spring compressor and there would have been and “explosion.”
I’ll add that one thing Eric apparently didn’t encounter, while doing any of his strut videos, is what happened to me: the upper nut on the strut was “stuck” or frozen to the strut shaft. In this case, the impact wrench did nothing but spin the shaft and associated pieces inside of the cylinder. This is the “fun” I had. So on top of the strut where the nut is located I noted that the shaft has either a hole in the center for a hex key or has flat sides for a wrench or vice grips. Then the fun was placing an open faced wrench on the nut and using vice grips to hold the shaft – trying to break a recalcitrant nut without the help of the impact wrench. Not even putting a little tension (or most of it) on the assemble by uncompressing the spring worked! Just brute force and some heat from the “big red wrench.” So this tool was critical.
Imho, Eric is far too polite about this when he says he’s happy he no longer cringes when doing struts – <font color="#0044ff]these coils are down right dangerous.[/color] The way I think about this (rightly or wrongly) is that one coil supports at least 1/4 the total weight of the car! So that’s a lot of built up energy in that coil – all waiting to be released instantaneously if one slips up. Haven’t found any part of my body that can take that kind of “encounter” unscathed. So imho it is important to get this right – [color=#ff0000″>safety over ego! Get the right tool for the job – this is the right tool.
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Whenever I encounter strut nuts that spin, I loosen the compressor to add more tension onto the nut. This helps keep it from spinning. At some point there will be a video released of me replacing the struts on my Vigor. I have that exact problem during the exchange.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
The shop I work in has one of those, and honestly it’s the only way to do it. Tension makes me tense. When potential energy goes kinetic it can get very ugly. Even on one of those spring compressors it can get sketchy and you still can get hurt.
IF you don’t have access to a machine like that, find someplace that does and have them do it. You can buy the assemblies fully assembled and that way you are getting a new mount as well as a new spring. It’s just not worth getting seriously hurt or killed to save a few bucks or to say you did it yourself.
Great tool Eric. I would not want to do struts without them, and if I had to buy the machine myself as long as I know I could get my money back out of it because I have had a few scary moments involving springs.
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