This is a picture of 40 year original shocks from my car. Replaced them with KYBs Excel-G shocks last Saturday. Lot work.
These old units are totally worn out.

 

Was it difficult to break loose the bolts on the front struts?...

 

YES! Liquid Wrench penetrating oil which I let set for 15 minutes. I have a high torque electric impact wrench. Eventually loosened & removed.
The bottom was more difficult because I was impacting on the bolt head & not the nut. Got them off.

 

Were you able to torque the bottom bolts to the proper spec?...

 

Impact tight. there is way these nuts will come loose

 

Been a while but iirc, the big strut bolts are something like 195 lb-ft

 

 

Also, the nuts are oblong & they stay tight. I may next time I have the wheels off to clean, I will check the torquing.
Tkx guys

 

Yep 195 ft/lbs. If not, when you check for wheel bearing play, you'll feel a play that you might confuse with a wheel bearing that needs repack/retorque or ball joint, etc..

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/susp...-question.html

 

I was able to torque the nuts to 180 ft-lbs. The hardware is going nowhere

 

91-92 cars have an improved tightening procedure that better overcomes variations caused by ill fitting parts and crusty old threads. It goes something like 125 lb-ft followed by 120° turn, and final torque must exceed 150 lb-ft.

Your 180 lb-ft is probably in the green if your threads are still in nice shape, although I think 200 lb-ft is what you're really supposed to aim for if you're just doing it in one step.

Also, lb-ft is torque and ft-lb is work. We won the war against the British but they had the last laugh when we kept their terrible system of measurements.

 

I still like inches, feet, & miles. No need to change something that works just fine...

 

Here in Canad, were were forced back in the later 1970's to convert to metric. In high school in the 1960's, Physics & Chemistry were measurements were in metric.
I am old school and live in Windsor across Detroit & we are influenced by the imperial measurements, etc..So i have to make conversions in my head. I think in imperial.

 

.... And you don't see the irony in how you didn't know the right units for torque?

 

Quick, i prefer the freedom eagle unit of measurement myself. 😆 nobody reeeeeally likes the metric thing, it's just easier to use. Hahahahahaha