So we bought my girlfriends car about two years ago now and it's been a wonderful little run around car. After those couple years though the clunks and rattles in the front end have finally become too much and so we decided to refresh it.
We did lower control arms about a month ago but that wasn't enough and when I did that I found the right front shock was blown and completely covered in it's own fluid (and muck).
So we decided to pick up Stagg shocks off of Ebay, mostly because of price but also because after doing some research I found that some people were exceedingly happy with their purchases and I have my fingers crossed that we'll be a couple of the lucky ones.
Front
Rear
Nice new and shiny! First thing before lifting the car to do is to pull the panels in beside the rear seat. Below I'm pointing to a hole that was literally down beside the seat base that required a pick and needle nose pliers to pull out without removing the seat. Those pins didn't go back in...
Up top in that pic you see a brass coloured nut. It's actually zinc coated and it was a 14mm. There are two others one to the left of it and one hidden behind the cap that keeps dust and moisture from entering the vehicle at the top of the strut.
The nuts and bolts that retain the strut to the knuckle are 17mm and are going to be tight. I hit them with PB blaster long before I started doing anything and did it again just before turning a wrench. A word of warning, remove the brake hose abs sensor wire and sway bar link before any of the other bolts and nuts.
And another thing... The bolt that holds the ABS sensor wire bracket to the knuckle/strut will probably be rusted in so solidly that you'll twist it off. I did. Never fear though, at full droop there's enough play in the wire to just zip tie it to the brake hose. Temp may be an issue but we're not keeping this car forever.
So at this point I made my one mistake per job and it could have been a costly one but I got lucky. After disassembling and moving everything over I missed a washer on that goes on top of the strut hat to spread out the force of the nut.
I ended up stripping the threads on the nut because it couldn't handle the torque (cheap Chinese hardware) and had to crack out the tap and die kit to make it right. I re used the OE nuts with a touch of Loctite to make sure they wouldn't back off and then reassembly.
Very nice. I reused the original springs because while rusty they were still in good shape. Then I moved on to the fronts. My helper/photographer/girlfriend found out about the tap and die kit and was super interested in it so lucky for her a couple of the bolts and nuts needed to be cleaned up while I pulled apart another strut assembly.
Like new. However what wasn't like new was the original fourteen year old front right strut that was completely blown out. That was the source of one of our noises and the epitome of a blown shock.
So we applied new upper strut mounts and bearings just to ensure that there were no other noises in the system and reinstalled.
And there you have it. Put the wheels back on, maybe go get an alignment which I already needed to do because of the lower control arms and then put the side panels back in by the rear seat. This job took me about 5 hours but would take longer if I didn't have a hoist or air tools.
The tools used were a screw driver, 12/14/17/21mm wrenches and sockets, spring compressors, torque wrench, breaker bar, hammer. I also used a pin punch and an impact gun but those are completely optional or situational.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this and I'll be back in a year or so to give you guys a full long term review of the Stagg struts and whether or not I believe they are worth the money.
Almost forgot. Bam, shop cat!
We did lower control arms about a month ago but that wasn't enough and when I did that I found the right front shock was blown and completely covered in it's own fluid (and muck).
So we decided to pick up Stagg shocks off of Ebay, mostly because of price but also because after doing some research I found that some people were exceedingly happy with their purchases and I have my fingers crossed that we'll be a couple of the lucky ones.
Front
Rear
Nice new and shiny! First thing before lifting the car to do is to pull the panels in beside the rear seat. Below I'm pointing to a hole that was literally down beside the seat base that required a pick and needle nose pliers to pull out without removing the seat. Those pins didn't go back in...
Up top in that pic you see a brass coloured nut. It's actually zinc coated and it was a 14mm. There are two others one to the left of it and one hidden behind the cap that keeps dust and moisture from entering the vehicle at the top of the strut.
The nuts and bolts that retain the strut to the knuckle are 17mm and are going to be tight. I hit them with PB blaster long before I started doing anything and did it again just before turning a wrench. A word of warning, remove the brake hose abs sensor wire and sway bar link before any of the other bolts and nuts.
And another thing... The bolt that holds the ABS sensor wire bracket to the knuckle/strut will probably be rusted in so solidly that you'll twist it off. I did. Never fear though, at full droop there's enough play in the wire to just zip tie it to the brake hose. Temp may be an issue but we're not keeping this car forever.
So at this point I made my one mistake per job and it could have been a costly one but I got lucky. After disassembling and moving everything over I missed a washer on that goes on top of the strut hat to spread out the force of the nut.
I ended up stripping the threads on the nut because it couldn't handle the torque (cheap Chinese hardware) and had to crack out the tap and die kit to make it right. I re used the OE nuts with a touch of Loctite to make sure they wouldn't back off and then reassembly.
Very nice. I reused the original springs because while rusty they were still in good shape. Then I moved on to the fronts. My helper/photographer/girlfriend found out about the tap and die kit and was super interested in it so lucky for her a couple of the bolts and nuts needed to be cleaned up while I pulled apart another strut assembly.
Like new. However what wasn't like new was the original fourteen year old front right strut that was completely blown out. That was the source of one of our noises and the epitome of a blown shock.
So we applied new upper strut mounts and bearings just to ensure that there were no other noises in the system and reinstalled.
And there you have it. Put the wheels back on, maybe go get an alignment which I already needed to do because of the lower control arms and then put the side panels back in by the rear seat. This job took me about 5 hours but would take longer if I didn't have a hoist or air tools.
The tools used were a screw driver, 12/14/17/21mm wrenches and sockets, spring compressors, torque wrench, breaker bar, hammer. I also used a pin punch and an impact gun but those are completely optional or situational.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this and I'll be back in a year or so to give you guys a full long term review of the Stagg struts and whether or not I believe they are worth the money.
Almost forgot. Bam, shop cat!
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