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Hey guys I've got an odd problem that, for the life of me, I can't seem to figure out. I've installed all new suspension and steering components in my car, and everything went smooth until it came to the struts going into the strut mounts. With the strut tightened onto the strut mount, I go to turn the wheel and instead of the bearing inside the strut mount turning, it just stays locked in place and the whole strut piston itself moves. This however only happens when the nut is tightened down. If the nut is off or loose then the strut mount bearing moves when the wheels are turned either way and keeps the piston locked in place, which is exactly what it should do, but as soon as you even get the nut hand tight on the strut, it goes back to not working properly. I'm at a loss here. I've been searching through TGO for hours and I've come across a thread where someone had a similar issue, but that was with founders strut mounts and the factory strut boot causing the problem. Right now I'm using KYB agx struts and KYB strut mounts with factory strut dust boots. I took a video showing the problem in case all this didn't make sense lol. In the video, the passenger side is tightened down and shows the problem I'm having. The driver side is with the nut not tightened down but the strut mount working properly. This is with the wheels on the ground, and me turning the wheel from left to right.
Yes, I'm using the OE plastic covers. Tomorrow I can double check the cover, see if it's seated correctly or not. I may even try it with cover completely off, see if it makes a difference.
The issue I was having was that the plastic on top the of the strut dust boot was bottoming out on the strut mount around the bearing, instead of the metal on top of the boot hitting the bearing itself. The reason for this is because the new KYB shock mounts I bought had rivets much larger then the ones that came off the car. Almost double the thickness of the old ones. The pictures show what I'm talking about.
So the way I solved this was my brother had some spacer rings made in his shop to lower the boot. Also sanded off a bit of plastic from the top of the boot since it got mangled. You can see in pictures where the rivets were hitting the boot. With the rings installed, the strut mounts are now doing what they are supposed to.
So I dunno, there's a slight chance I just got a bad batch of strut mounts but I highly doubt it. I would bet all KYB strut mounts are like this. I honestly never would have known this was happening if my brother wasn't there watching while I turned the wheel. Watching to make sure the strut mount bearings work is a step I've never done when doing front suspension on these cars, but from now I'll always check. And if anyone reading this has KYB strut mounts with factory dust boots I'd check them as well.
And this is just showing the spacers and the boots cleaned up. If anyone else out there has the same problem, you could probably find a washer that has a an OD the same as the OD of the bearing and just drill the inside out to the same diameter as the strut piston. Getting spacers machined was a little overkill but when you got a brother with access to a machine shop, then why not lol.
I know there is a metal washer that goes between the strut and bearing, is that what you were missing?
...No? Haha if theres supposed to be a washer there then that would explain alot. Do most cars come with a washer there? There was no washer when I took them off and I didn't see a washer in the my service manual diagram. But who knows there could have been a washer there from the factory that went missing at some point of this cars life
07-17-2016, 10:13 PM
