Removing Strut TopHats without Air Tools

[spinifex]

Firstly, I'm sorry if this is one of those things that has been covered a gazillion times on here..... but I've searched and cannot find the answer.

Youtube videos haven't really helped either, sadly

How do you remove the main tophat nut, from a set of Liberty struts, when you don't have air tools?
A mate and I started to replace my worn out factory struts (Gen3 wagon) with some 2nd hand SpecB Gen4 items.
I've been reliably informed they will bang straight in, but I need to swap my original Gen3 tophats onto the Gen4 struts, as the Gen4 items are too big to go up the strut tower on the older car.
A quick measure of the bolt holes confirms the strut tops are bigger on the Gen4 items.

Anyway - we tried loosing off the tophat nut, before removing the strut - but didn't have a deep enough socket to do it. By the time my mate raced home to get some more tools, I'd finished removing the strut, so we tried the old vice-grips on the shaft trick, while trying to undo the nut. No go. The vice grips wouldnt grip, and the shaft just spun inside the strut body.

There has to be an easier way of doing this. What is the allen-key insert in the top of the shaft used for? I assume you hold the shaft in position with an allen key (instead of vice-gripping the shaft) and then somehow remove the nut... but how the hell do you do this?

Any help is appreciated.... otherwise, the whole lot gets chucked back in - hopefully haven't damaged the old shaft significantly - and it gets driven to a shop to get professionally swapped out.... for the exorbitant fees I've already been quoted (approx $300-350)

(And of course - in this great capital city of ours, in this backwards state, hardly any suspension shops are open on a saturday, nor mechanical workshops that I could easily find online !!!)

[imania]

Allen key + spanner if it's anything like any of the other ones I've done

[paggaz]

Yep you use a deep ring spanner while holding the strut in place with the allen key - similar to this http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stor ... yId_165469 (just a random one I found on the internet)

Alternatively if you want to spend more money, this tool is a ratchet with a hole in the middle to insert the allen key:
http://www.atitools.com/kmitac/viewimage.php?proid=195

Multi-grips on a socket probably works too..

It wouldn't hurt to ask, but are you using spring compressors?

[bigBADbenny]

Silly question but could 2 or three heavy duty ratchet straps be used as spring compressors

[paggaz]

Interesting....I've never thought of that. It probably could. They'd be quite bulky and fiddly to get the right position, but possible...there's only one way to find out
The $30 el cheapo set which is in the garage has done several sets of springs without fail.

[spinifex]

Thanks guys for the responses.

In answer to paggaz: Had spring compressors, but didn't think to compress the springs while the strut was IN the car..... but certainly compressed them once the strut was out and sitting on the garage floor. Tophat nut was just too tight to manage cracking it, and at the time, wasn't using a ring spanner, to allow an allen key to hold the central shaft from spinning.

Moot point now.... it's booked in with the local mechanic on Wednesday, to get done. Rather just get someone professional to do it - at least I know everything will be done up nice and tight afterwards, as I don't have a torque wrench

[spinifex]

Hmmm...... I'd like to know how several guys on here have achieved the "yep, just swap the tophats over and they bang straight in", swapping Gen4 front struts into a Gen3 ???

Dropped the car to the local mechanic who called me back in to show me that the tophats will not simply swap over.

The threaded section on the top of the shockie shaft, has a small unthreaded section beneath it, that locates the tophat bearing.

On the old Gen3 item, this section is much longer, and located further up the shaft.

In swapping both the tophats & spring-cup plate thingy over, there is no unthreaded-section available to locate the tophat bearing & washer = no good.
Mechanic couldn't use the Gen3 spring-plate (which would have allowed more of the shaft sticking through, to locate the tophat & nut), as the diameter of the springs is different = no good.
Also, the Gen4 spring-plate will not fit inside the Gen3 tower, so couldn't use that anyway.

So now I'm stuck with a useless set of Gen4 billies, a labour-bill for pulling it all out and apart and back together again.... and a headache as I try to locate some GTB Gen3 items to use instead.

Anyone have any suggestions? I'm rapidly heading towards just spending exorbitant amounts of money on new Sportsryder stuff from Pedders.... somebody tell me why I shouldn't ???

[Robbks]

are the front strut top bolt spaciogs different from gen3 to gen4..?
i thought they were all the same

[spinifex]

Different size Rob.

I can't remember the exact numbers, when I measured it the other day - but it was something like 10mm wider, between the top strut-bolts, and the spring-plate cup thing is about 20-25mm overall diameter wider also, so won't fit up the tower.

I was informed, before purchasing the Gen4 billies, that a simple swap of the tophats was all that was required.... by a couple of people who have done it..... but not sure how they've managed it !