Have an r52. Just wanted to get ideas on how people installed the strut back into the car. The longer bolts on the top of the strut mount make it difficult to slide the bottom of the strut into the steering knuckle. The oem was much easier. Any ideas?

 

Snug the top plate to the tower first, then get the strut into the knuckle. However, the additional thickness of the IE plate will make it need a bit more effort. IIRC, the worst ones I did were when installing FSD's... which might be a hair longer than OE struts.

Btw, if installing Craven top plates, you'll need to shorten the ends of the studs as they're too long and will bottom out in the studs supplied with the Craven plates. If not, disregard.

 

Yeah - what he ^ said. insert studs up through the tower, thread the nuts on finger tight, then work the bottom end - that's what I did. I did mine with FSD's and it WAS a bear to get the end of the strut in the knuckle... I used a board and my floor jack to CAREFULLY push up on the spring hat to raise the strut enough to go in - WATCH THOSE FINGERS... Probably could have used some ratchet straps to compress the spring a bit, too... wish I had thought of that at the time...

 

Ditto. Didn't think of that either... Would only need to compress a half an inch or so... A couple of ratchet straps would work perfectly...

 

I'm kicking myself now... because I used the ratchet straps to compress the spring to disassemble and reassemble... they were lying right there on the floor beside me and I didn't think to try them... I WILL the next time I do it, for sure...

 

Here's what I did:

First went and bought some rachet tie downs... at the same time I called Dustin from Autoxcooper.com and asked his opinion. He said to try and unbolt a couple of other bolts to see if I get more wiggle room.

Tried the rachet tie downs first and I just couldn't get enough compression to get it through. What I ended up doing is use some lubricant, my jack, loosened a couple of bolts, and used my hands while another person watched the top bolts. Carefully I aligned everything and slowly with a lot of persuasion it went in. That extra wiggle room that Dustin recommended worked like a charm. Not sure if it would work with FSD's though. I barely made it with the oem shock. Glad to have it done. Now I'm just worried about the clearancing on the driver side. I followed the instructions for the tsw springs, but it just doesn't look like there's enough space on the driver side. A tiny gap but who knows if it'll disappear once the springs settle in. Thanks for all the help and ideas.