How To: Koni Struts

cobalt123

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Hope this helps those that have the same worthless directions that came with my set of koni's.

Thanks to Halfcent's prior how to for removing the struts. His how to is better then mine would be, so to save time, check out his link for Front strut and spring R&R

So, now you have the strut tower removed, and you are ready to gut 'em.

Halfcent used a allen wrench and a wrench to take off the large nut that holds the strut and spring assembly together. I found that am impact wrench did the job in about 2 seconds.

Before you break it apart, make sure you draw a line from the top of the spring assembly to the bottom. In halfcent's how to, you can see a set of painted green lines, that show how it should be assembled. I drew another line with a grease pencil to insure I didn't screw anything up, and that I had it as close to lined back up as possible.

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After taking off the spring, you are left with the strut inside the strut tower. Turn it upside down, and secure it upright in a vice grip. Use a center finder, and scratch an X on the bottom side of the strut tower in order to find the center.

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Punch a mark in the center.

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Drill a pilot hole through the bottom of the strut tower.

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To avoid a real mess, don't follow the koni directions about placing a piece of tape over the hole to keep the oil inside from leaking out. Take the tower to an oil pan and drain the oil. To speed up the process, push the strut in and out, and squirt it out. This should take a few minutes to get most of it out. Then tape over the hole to make sure the rest of the oil doesn't drip out.


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Next take your new koni strut and measure from the flat part of the yellow casing to small bumps on the side, roughly 44 mm down on my set. Use calipers if you have them. Write down the measurement as you will need it on the next step. Make sure you use this measurent and not the sugested measurement given by koni, as I found out it was slightly off. (you may not be able to see them in the picture. I measured to the center of the bumps. Make sure you measure correctly before you cut, or else the strut may rattle around inside the housing.)

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Once again, put the strut tower in the vice grips, and use blue painters tape to mark the top of the strut tower. Using the measurment from the last step, subtract 7mm from it to get your new number. This is the ammount that needs to be cut off from the top of the strut tower. Draw your mark for the cut. (The koni directions are not very clear here. Make sure that you leave the black plastic dust cover on the housing during you measurment.)

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We used a sawsall to cut the top of the strut tower off. You will need to roatate the tower around to keep from cutting to deep.

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---------- Post added at 01:50 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:50 AM ----------

Once you cut all the way around, you will be able to pull the strut out from the housing. Drain the rest of the oil inside the housing.

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File the new cut to clean up any burs, and make sure the inside of the tower is clean and smooth.

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Then enlarge the pilot hole on the bottom of the strut housing to 14mm, or 9/16". Again, file it clean. Was out the housing to get out any metal shavings and the rest of the oil.

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Place the rubber dust cover that koni provides over the cut end of the housing.


Put the new strut in the housing. It may not go down all the way at first because of the small lips on the side, that you measured to prior to cutting the stock strut. You can use a soft rubber hammer to "guide" the strut in, or you can let the bolt pull it down in the next step.

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Install the lower bolt and the washers. As you tighten, the strut will be pulled down into the tube. The small tabs on the side of the strut will fill any gaps, and keep it from rattleing around. Torque the bolt to 55 lbs and slide the rubber dust cover over the gaps.

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Install the provided washers and plastic covers prior to reinstalling the stock dust cover and bump stop.

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Your koni strut is now installed in the housing. Reassemble the strut tower with your spring, making sure the marks line up. Follow the steps listed in Halfcent's post for reassembly, using the new nuts provided for the top of the strut tower. Torque to specs.

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I was a bit affraid to go into this project, but I have to say, It was much easier then I expected. The entire install for the front and rear koni's and my eibach sportlines took about 4-5 hours with a long lunch break. I am sure we spent a good hour just trying to figure out the picture directions that koni sent me. It went really quick once we figured out what we were doing.

Hope this helps someone out
 

YelloEye

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I didnt tape off the top and measured incorrectly on one of them, so the insert rattled around inside the strut body on bumps, tried shimming it but to no avail. Better to not cut enough, than to cut too much.
 

agita_san

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I just got my koni's delivered today and yeah, the supplied instructions are rubbish. This is gonna be a HUGE help!
 

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