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Strut nuts and bolts

Skylarking

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Sometimes, unskilled playing with brakes won’t allow the luxury of live and learn…. Sometimes errors are fatal :oops:
 
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rambunctious

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I’m impressed that you managed to snap the caliper bolts in the first place! That would have taken some doing!
Maybe undoing them the wrong direction.
Gees I use a lump hammer against the socket bar to undo mine and never broken one yet,
even used the partners 2.5 kg exercise weight one time cause I couldn't find the lump hammer, she was not impressed,
mind you I did break the wheel brace and ended up doing a face plant to the concrete undoing the wheel nuts.
Used my brain after that and used the rattle gun socket with a piece of pipe on the socket wrench and my foot to push down on it.
Rattle gun would not even move them.
Was easy after that.
 

VZ1CAR59

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hey guys. Hoping you could help out with my issue now. I finished the job last Friday. The brakes and suspension all went back in I was happy with what I had learnt to do. I suspected I may have issues however as the drivers side reassembly was different to the passenger side. I have not driven the car other than to test it since. The drivers side now makes a clunk when going of bumps, to me it sounds like something is moving inside. The way the drivers side differed is that when tightening the upper shaft retaining nut on the drivers side it just spun the mount rather than tightening further. The bearing did come apart on accident and we had to reassemble, as this is the spinning component I suspect we perhaps did it wrong, On the passenger side I was able to torque it correctly. The follow on affect of this is that the top nut in the engine bay is unable to go down any further. There is a small gap between disk and strut tower where you can the nut is sitting too high. Same story, passenger side I torqued correctly no movement in mont, drivers side mount just spun.

I know I have made a mistake somewhere. I can drive my partners car until I get round to fixing it, not in a rush and don't want to causing further damage. At the end of the job I will be taking it for a brake and suspension check at the mechanic, would just like to figure it out on my own. If needs be I will have no issue taking it to a mechanic. I set out on this to learn not to find cheaper route of doing it.

I have seen on another post of JC of someone with exact same signs however it appeared to be a collapsed mount. I replaced mine so I highly highly doubt that is possible. My first port of call will be to replace the bearing, any heads up on where you think I might of gone wrong would be great. I will post photos below. First is good passenger side. Second is wrong drivers side with nut positioning. Gap under disk is too hard to photograph. thanks
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215578344_771950083485685_4488251705275175436_n.jpg
 

Fu Manchu

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Remove it. Inspect it. Reassemble.
Wonder if the nut cross threaded?
 

wannaeatyourbrains

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I think you mean that rather than the top nut tightening, it was spinning the shocky shaft, actually undoing the nut holding the cupwasher, bearing and spring on. You gotta use a 10mm on the end of the shaft to solve the problem. You can do it while it is in there OK. Once you've tightened the cup washer nut back home by spinning the shaft, keep the 10mm on the end of the shaft and use a ring or open end on the top nut until it tightens home and grabs. Then torque it.

Makes me wonder if you put the cup washer on upside down?
 

VZ1CAR59

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Guys, appreciate your replies. Fu, yep that's the plan. Sometimes there's obvious things you just completely miss. Interesting thought. I don't think so, I did reuse the nut original but it did look to be in good condition. Maybe ill try replacing and swapping over. Eat ya brains. Totally missed that spinning shaft would be loosening top nut. I'll give it a shot tomorrow morning seeing that I don't even need to take it out. also I took a video of myself removing the components and followed it when putting back so shouldn't have anything the wrong way round.

The reason I feel as though I mucked something up is because the passenger side went in so easy. No issues whatsoever. Maybe I just got lucky and did something different without noticing.

As always thanks your help
 
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VZ1CAR59

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Guys. all sorted. You were spot on eat your brains. I actually mounted it on the car before realising I had assembled it wrong, so I took it off fixed it and put it back. What I completely missed doing this was that when removing from the vehicle the rod shaft was spinning loosening the mount retaining nut. Should of thought about it/checked it but I will know for next time. Took top nut and disc off and as you said the nut below was loose as causing the clunking. Saved me a lot of time redoing the job. You guys are awesome thanks again.

Next job is PCV mod, catch can set, cleaning rocker covers and cleaning fuel injectors. I'm sure ill be speaking with you again soon
 
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