i put in koni yellows on the front of my car recently and every few days the nut comes loose from the shock tower and i can spin it by hand. is there a way to tighten it for good? i ask because every time i tighten with a wrench it just spins the piston in the shock and goes nowhere and we broke the little top **** off trying to tighten it.

So essentially, how can I tighten the nut and keep it from turning the whole thing? Thanks in advance.

 

For a fellow STX F body I decided I would help you out. What I did was this; I place a 1/2" drive deepwell socket over the nut, through the center of that socket used a 1/4" drive socket to keep the adjuster nut and the shaft from spinninjg, then used a pipe wrench to turn the deep well socket. After a full season of autocross it is still tight.

 

alright thanks! ill try it out but i dont seem to have an adjuster/center nut just like a little flat stem thing. ill give it a shot though.

 

IMPACT

 

what he means is use an impact wrench

 

The rod just spunwhen I tried to tighten without holding the other nut. The nut that I am talking about is at the base of the flat thing.

 

Use an air powered impact gun. If you are still living in the stone age (only hand tools) drive it to a garage somewhere and ask the mechanic to hit the nut with his gun. Give him $5 for his 20 seconds worth of trouble. Drive away happy, knowing that the nut won't loosen.

 

I think that you are missing my point. It is not that the nut is coming loose but that it was never tight to begin with because the shaft turns with the nut as you are trying to tighten it. For me the rod just spun faster with air tools.

 

Are you using good air tools, or the free ones that came with a craftsman compressor? Makes a difference. Are you hitting the trigger in short blasts, or laying into it? Also makes a difference (in my experience. others may disagree). If you use a QUALITY high powered gun, not an air ratchet, with repeated short blasts you shouldn't have a problem. Some struts take a couple more tries than others but they will all tighten with a GOOD gun. I promise.