[hdrewh]

Getting right to it...I don't have enough room to both hold the shock in place with an allen wrench and tighten the top nut down with an open end wrench. I have the springs compressed as much as I can having left just enough at the top and bottom to seat them properly. What am I missing here?

Thanks.

[john16443]

Well I must say that you were more successful than I was with the re-installation of the spring and shock assembly. Did my FSD replacement a couple months ago and this was the worst part of the job.

If your problem is the inability to hold the shock while tightening the nut, you may try a few things:

1) Go to Harbor Freight and buy as set of through sockets like these
http://www.harborfreight.com/Combo-G...-Pc-67974.html
That should allow you to hold the shock with the allen wrench and still tighten the nut with the socket.

2) Apply some tape to the shock shaft below the hat and grab the shaft with vise grips or something. Then tighten the nut. A rag may work as well. Grab as high as possible on the shaft.

Originally Posted by john16443

1) Go to Harbor Freight and buy as set of through sockets like these
http://www.harborfreight.com/Combo-G...-Pc-67974.html
That should allow you to hold the shock with the allen wrench and still tighten the nut with the socket.

Do that. Otherwise rent/borrow/steal an impact wrench from somewhere. I highly advise that you do NOT grab your shaft with vise grips. That goes for the struts too.

[hdrewh]

Originally Posted by FCobra94

Do that. Otherwise rent/borrow/steal an impact wrench from somewhere. I highly advise that you do NOT grab your shaft with vise grips. That goes for the struts too.

lol. I have an impact wrench, but shouldn't I be concerned about over-torqueing? Heading to Sears to see about some go-through sockets. It's a 22mm.

Thanks.

[Eat.Sleep.Race]

Originally Posted by FCobra94

Do that. Otherwise rent/borrow/steal an impact wrench from somewhere. I highly advise that you do NOT grab your shaft with vise grips. That goes for the struts too.

Thats what i did. Impact GUN.

[ajsalida]

Don't use an impact gun. The rod is brittle in torsion and you can easily shear it in half.

Find a socket the right size of the nut that will slip into there and grind flats on opposite sides, grab socket with vice grips, allen wrench goes into the hole in the top of the socket. Easy peasy.

[cdgatti]

I used an impact gun to get it started then once it was tight was able to torque with socket (open ended) and allen wrench.

[ajsalida]

You may get away with an impact gun if you are very careful. Even a few folks on this forum have found out the hard way it is easy to break off the top of the rod doing that. I used to work for a shop that among other things rebuilt race shocks. Yep, you get a lot of $$$ expensive struts with snapped off rods.

Originally Posted by ajsalida

You may get away with an impact gun if you are very careful. Even a few folks on this forum have found out the hard way it is easy to break off the top of the rod doing that. I used to work for a shop that among other things rebuilt race shocks. Yep, you get a lot of $$$ expensive struts with snapped off rods.

Hmm...good point. Thanks for sharing!

[hdrewh]

Brought them to a local mechanic who tightened them down with an impact gun. I could have done the same but was hesitant. I like the idea of grinding flats on a socket for future reference.

Thanks for the replies.

[The HACK]

According to the ETK, the E9X uses an M12x1.5 thread, which should be a 19mm socket?

http://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/71229389



This is a 3/4" (19mm translates to .74x") flare-nut crowfoot wrench. This will allow you to torque the nut using a torque wrench while passing through an allen key on a socket on a second ratchet wrench to lock down the shaft. On external adjustable Koni shocks it's a 12mm socket instead, so I would use a long socket to lock down the shaft from up top.

If you don't tighten that nut to torque spec, you can either have it too loose, which will introduce a lot of noise and potentially shorten the life of the strut bearing, or you can tighten it TOO MUCH and introduce bind or worse, warp some of the components leading to damages to other parts of the suspension.

If you're going to do it yourself, get the right tools. Some of the local auto parts stores may even have this tool for you to rent.

If you don't want to invest in the right tools, you can also take a 19mm 1/2" drive socket, take an angle grinder and grind 2 parallel flat spots, each 1mm deep, on the side of the socket. Then use a 17mm crow foot wrench on the socket. The torque spec on the nut isn't that high so it's unlikely the thinner walls on the socket will weaken it enough that it'll break before reaching the torque spec.

[g9sBMW]

Attempted Koni FSD isntall this weekend, found out via you tube videos that when removing the OEM BMW strut the top nut can be removed with a 6mm allen wrench inserted through a 13/16 spark plug socket. The spark plug socket has a hex top that you can use a 3/4" wrench.

My problem during the FSD install is that the new nut for the Koni FSD strut is NOT 19mm , its 22mm. So I had to either order the Schwaben Strut Nut Socket - 22mm

but, instead I found that I can use thin wall oxygen sensor socket which 7/8" = 22 mm

Hope this helps people.

Search CTA 2064 Thin-wall Oxygen Sensor Socket

[Emilime75]

Originally Posted by The HACK

This won't work. Neither will it work, or is it necessary, if you grind a couple of flat spots on a regular socket,...grind 2 flat spots = use open end wrench. The O2 sensor socket someone else mentioned is a good idea, and would allow the use of a crow's foot socket and torque wrench.