Hi guys, any chance anybody would help me take a look at my passenger side front strut? I think the bolt on the bottom came loose or out of the strut. My koni insert is thunking around in there, i.e. I get a bang every time I go over a bump, frost heave, etc. I just had my car down at Alfa & Subaru in Sacramento getting a head gasket replacement and they said they fixed this problem, but on the way home, it started happening again. They said my strut had banged through the bottom of my assembly and the bolt had fallen out, so they put a bunch of large washers on to hold it in place along with a new bolt, and maybe that's the problem, as the bolt might not reach the insert now. I have never done strut install/removal and don't have a spring compressor. I cut and pasted this (below) from nasioc where another guy had the same problem and i just figure the shop might not have locktited this bolt. The thread and excerpt are below explaining what i'm talking about. There would be beer involved for whoever could help? The Koni insert could just be dead too, and i might need a new one.
Thanks, and see below. the thread has pics of how to install the konis, and the excerpt explains what I think may be the case.
The silver washer one is the messed up clunking one. The other one is the driver side, and is how all the others looked. I'm thinking the bolt isn't in the insert threads.
Mark
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/show....php?t=1219607
Have been running with these inserts for about 3 years now, and absolutely love them. The only issue I had and would give warning about is that medium strength Locktite should be used on the bottom bolt (the one that holds the bottom of the insert to the bottom of the strut body)
I developed knocking several months after installation and realized one of these bolts had come loose and fell out. The insert was freely bouncing within the strut body. Had to get another bolt from Koni and the Locktited them all - had not had a problem since. I 'll also say that to reinsert the bolt once the struts are on the car is a pain but possible. The car has t be jacked up with wheel loaded (not suspended in air) so that the strut is in compression and the bottom of the insert is as close to the bottom of the strut body as possible. Even then we had to get a long bolt of very similar pattern/thread pitch to catch the bottom of the insert and bring it down far enough to the hole so that we could then insert the regular Koni holding bolt (but now with locktite )
good luck all
sav
