First things first, this is not very hard to do. It is time consuming, frustrating, and requires lots of elbow grease with WD40, but it can be done in about 2-3 hours if you work quickly. It took me about 6 hours. Special thanks to shadohh for letting me use his driveway (despite the snow it was about 60 out), his garage, some of his tools, and manpower.

To install struts, you will need at least the following: Spring compressor, jack, jack stands, 2 rachet and socket sets (metric sockets up 19 or 21mm, cant remember) or 1 set with a set of metric wrenches, and some time. Gloves are very nice to have as well, since the fenderwell gets pretty nasty.

Ok, first thing you gotta do is raise the car up off the ground. If you're doing all 4 struts (as you should be), you might as well get the whole car off the ground and rotate the tires while you're there since the tires need to come off anyways. The hood will be need to be open, as will the hatch, so roll down the windows and play some music while you work.


Time to start unbolting stuff. Up in the engine bay/under the rear speaker grills are the strut tower mounts. Undo all three nuts with a 12mm socket. The front passenger strut tower (pictured) has 4 bolts, 3 for the strut and 1 for the acceleration sensor thats a 10mm.


Now that the car is up in the air, take a look inside the fenderwell at the strut assembly.

The two bolts at the bottom of the strut body that hold the spindle up need to come out. I believe they are 17mm. Some wd40 and an impact gun goes real well here. You will also need to disconnect the brake line from its support mount on the strut body (note: you are NOT taking the brake line apart, you are simply pulling it away from the strut body).

Once the strut is completely loose, just pull it out. It should look something like this:


I lost the pics of the spring being compressed, so use your imagination. When I get home I'll try to upload them again... Anyway, compress the spring. Then take your hand in either a glove or with a leather cloth or something and grap the strut shaft (hold it TIGHT). Then take your impact gun and use it to get the 19mm bolt off the top of the strut housing. The shaft will spin with the nut (on the rears for sure, not 100% positive about the fronts) so you'll need to hold on tigh to make sure its spinning slower than the nut, if at all.

Here's the side by side of a new KYB GR-2 strut next to a 55,000mile+ OE strut.

You can see that the KYB shaft and body are slightly bigger and beefier. Also, you can see that the KYB is not blown and sitting at its full extension lol .

Now all you need to do is take the rubber spring seats off the old struts and put them on the new ones, and reverse the disassembly procedure. Dont forget the bump stops and dust covers! When its all said and done, it should look like this:


Now lower the car back down, double check that everything is tight on the strut mounts, and set an appointment for an alignment for two weeks from now. You've got new struts, so its off to the twistiez to celebrate.8D

 

Quick tip. Loosen those bolts on top of the struts with the car on the ground. Do all 4 strut top nuts (or at least thet struts you are going to replace) with the car on the ground, then jack it up and use jack stands. It makes it possible to do the job without an Impact wrench. With the weight of the car on the struts, just a normal socket/breaker bar will work to remove them. DO NOT take them off, just loosen them.

If installing lowering springs, remove the Poly bump stop from the top of the dust boot (they are tight, but they do pop out.) Cut about 1" off the fronts and about .5 to .75" off the rears. This will give you a bit of your suspension travel back that you loose with the lowering springs, and still leave you bump stops. DO NOT REMOVE the bumpstops. They are needed, just cut them down a tad.

 

what about if you get springs and shocks...like the eibach kit...do you still have to cut down the stoppers?

 

hey.. anyone have a complete DIY on installing lowering springs on an 01 tib. And what are these things you are saying to cut Random? help

Thanks

 

yeah, read above

I'll see if I can dig Sonic's stockers outta the dumpster to give you guys an idea as to how to dig it out and what to cut, and how to cut it.

 

i guess that will do Random. I was looking for a more detailed step by step for just the springs. Visionz said he has one at home and is gonna email it to me. But thanks and that thing about cutting will help too.. Appreciate it

Later

 

You have to take the struts out to do the springs. The only difference is that your car will look different and you'll be decompressing your stock springs once everything is apart. i.e. this stage:

... and compressing your aftermarket spring to throw it on the strut. When you goto reassemble the strut, throw on the new spring.

BTW, the bumpstop is the big rubber thingy on the strut shaft. I didnt cut mine down, but i think I should have. Oh well, it doesnt really bottom out.

 

ok.. well i feel like a real dumbass now. All of the stuff i have read on spring installation.. i guess my mind skipped over the part that said "take the strut out"..so i wasnt understanding it, but i do now.. hey, i'm still a noob.. what can i say? dunno but i feel dumb still... but random.. that pic of that rubber thing would be nice.. how far to cut it and all

[ April 08, 2003, 10:51 PM: Message edited by: BigBoi ]

 

bigboi....go up to the first indentation...and if you have a 2000-01 tib....dont forget about the rear washers on the struts! here are the pics this washer goes right here....dont forget it!! esta mas importante!!

 

I installed my eibachs last week... and is it weird not to have the bump stops? I have an 01 tib. I did have those washers though and put one in wrong, but fixed it after i noticed it. But no bump stops?