This will be good for you STi guys. With the inverted strut configuration Subaru is using for their STi struts, one thing has come to light: They collect dirt. Moreso to the point, the craptastic grease in them collects dirt. This will oftentimes lead to clunking and binding in the rear struts. How can you avoid such catastrophe? Repack your struts with Synthetic Grease and replace the worthless lube they come with from the factory. A big thanks to idget for assistance and guidance. You will need: 14mm Socket Wrench Prybar/Screwdriver Mobil 1 Synthetic Grease or equivalent A long, thin stick/dowel Rags A flashlight Gloves Optional: 17mm Socket Wrench Allen key set Step 1: Remove the strut from the car (if necessary). I will not go into the removal an install of this, but may do a writeup on that later. Step 2: Take the strut to an area where you can work on it without a lot of dirt/dust contamination. Flip the strut upside-down and remove the 14mm nut on the bottom. I have found that sticking a prybar or screwdriver through the lower mounting holes gives you something to torque with. Set the nut aside. Step 3: Flip the strut back over and slide it out of the lower housing. Clean off your bumpstop (factory grease is yellow, make sure you get rid of it) and set the strut assembly aside. Step 4: Take your stick/dowel and scrape the old grease off the inside walls of the strut housing. Get it fairly clean by taking rags and plunging them down through the housing. If your stick/dowel is thin enough, you can push the rag back through from the bottom. Use the rags as a finishing touch, don't rely on them to do the major cleaning or you will have a mess on your hands. Step 5: Clean off your stick/dowel and use it to apply your new grease to the 3 grease channels inside the strut housing. It doesn't have to look pretty, just make sure you've got enough. Step 6: Take the strut assembly and plunge it in the housing to pack the grease and burp any air out of the strut. Remove it and check inside to make sure you've used enough grease. Repeat Step 5 as needed. Step 7: When you're ready to re-assemble, make sure you align the threaded end of the strut with the slotted hole on the bottom of the strut housing. Give it a final burping before putting the nut back on. I like to plunge the strut halfway down, then all the way down twice. Thread the nut back on the bottom and torque it. Here is where things get optional, you can either add your springs to the assembly before Step 7 and try bleeding your strut with your springs on or remove the tophat and install it that way. If you're skinny like me and only have 140 lbs of weight to compress your strut/spring combination, you will opt for tophat removal. Step 8: Remove your tophat. There is a little cover on the top, just pry it off and expose the 17mm nut on the top. Generally a nice electric impact wrench will remove it for you, otherwise you may need to get creative with holding the strut or using an allen key and wrench to twist it loose. Step 9: Put your spring on. Make sure that the end of the spring nestles into the lower spring perch. You will see where it is supposed to go. Step 10: Re-install your tophat. These are directional, so make sure that the outside stud lines up with your lower strut mount. It will usually have a marking on the top to the effect of "4WD OUT" marked on it. This stud faces outward. Torque your nut back down. Step 11: Install your newly repacked struts into your car and enjoy clunk-free driving.
Good write. Simply pushing the dust boot up and cleaning/adding a little lube every oil change will do wonders as well.
This is a good tip also, but some people still seem to get a lot of dirt accumulation in there regardless. I can't stress how pathetic the factory grease is. The Mobil 1 upgrade works quite well.
LOLZ. very nice. I just installed mine yesterday and kick myself in the butt for not repacking them before hand. I have to do this...great timing. So, no more clunks or sticking in the rears when you're done?
Right. Supposedly if one is getting light clunking then it should fix your problems. If your strut is completely out, you're hosed Tommy.
8th picture. PB Blaster in the background. Did you "accidentally" take that home? Like the q-tips... Unloading the suspension, letting it droop, then spraying some white lithium grease on the shaft every couple thousand miles is recommended. Using the spray on the shaft as a substitute for synthetic grease isn't gonna help much. My stock grease started looking like grey poupon after 6 months and 5k miles of total usage... not nearly as bad as 1_sik_wrx's tho... that was really gritty.
Bringing this back from the depths, but I was just wondering if doing this will throw off my alignment? I'm driving to Chicago this weekend and would like to be strut clunk free, but its probably not a good idea to drive there with my alignment messed up either.
You should be fine. There is no camber adjustment for the rear suspension (stock). Toe is not adjusted at the strut body either.
sounds good thanks for the input. about how long should this project take to do?... that way i can double that time and know how long it will take me haha
Last time took me about an hour and a half. You could spend all day cleaning the strut bodies out if you wanted to. Unbolting the suspension takes 5-10 minutes per side and a couple minutes to take out the rear seats.
I think a skilled/prepared person could do it in ~2 hrs (maybe faster, I'm being reasonable), if you are taking your sweet time (and drinking the correct amount of beer) I would allot ~6 hrs.
jack up car/place jack stands = 2 minutes Un bolt bottom struts bolts = 5-10 minutes per side remove rear seat = 2 minutes un bolt top hats = 3 minutes per side disassemble top hats and springs = 1 minute per side SOAK bottom damper nut in PB Blaster = 10 minutes total remove inserts/dampers = 1 minute total (unless the nut and damper threads are hatched.....) clean and re-grease = 10 minutes per side Comlpete reassembly and installation = 30 minutes total = 1.5 hours average. Could be faster or slower depending upon condition of suspension. 6 hours = 1 case of beer..which would result in 12 hours and nothing done!
If your skilled enough, you can actually stretch any job into a full day of drinking in a garage with your car buds :biggrin:
Took me 5 hours for front brake pads+greasing the caliper pins. 8 hours for rear struts. And No beer. WIN?
ok, i made it to step 2 and now i'm afraid i may need a new strut. i was trying to loosen the nut at the bottom which was very tight and finally broke it free. of course i was happy when it broke free except for when i realized the nut wasn't coming off. i can't complete the "set the nut to the side" part because it appears as the bolt that the nut is on is spinning and not the nut. am i screwed?
possibly. the shaft that actually threads into a slot in the strut body. So try pushing the shaft down towards the nut and get it to seat back in the slot. You should be able to spin the nut off the rest of the way. If you deformed the slot or the tab on the shaft that sits in the slot, you might be screwed. wow, that was a lot of shafts and slots and nuts and such...
ok so i tried finding the "slot" you talked about and i think i found it. i can spin the nut with my fingers because it is loose and when i spin it it hits kind of a "notch" or something but it doesnt stay tight in it because i can spin it out of it with my fingers. so i'm pretty sure i wrecked the "slot" you speak of and that it may be impossible to get off the nut. here's a crappy camera phone picture of the nut on the strut (note that it is finger tight in this pic) if this is true and i did wreck the slot would i still be able to at least put the strut back on the car so i can drive it in the mean time while i order new struts/coilovers?
well i attacked the other rear strut and figured out how it is suppose to work. its a for sure that i wrecked that slot. i would assume that it wouldn't hurt anything to just use this strut in the mean time while waiting for a new one though would it?
na, you can run it...it's going to clunk real bad tough. How long did you let the nut soak before trying to take it off? as sheen stated...put strut upside down, compress strut while hitting it with an impact gun to get it off. Make sure the rod is all the way in the slot before attempting
i let it soak for 1-2 minutes with pb blaster. then i did the best i could to compress it and get it off with a ratchet by myself. that didnt work so then i tried the impact and thats when it broke. for the other strut i found someone to help me hold the strut and i was able to get it off relatively easily with just a ratchet
Ok, finally picked up a full set of struts off an 06 sti with 35k miles to replace mine. I was thinking I would repack them before even installing them. I was just wondering if I should repack the fronts too? I haven't really heard of the front struts having strut clunk issues so maybe this isn't necessary?
I repacked my fronts as well while I had them out. If you're using Mobil 1 or any kind of quality grease, it would definitely be an upgrade from the factory grease.
Finished this project yesterday and it should be noted for anyone that may try to do this in the future that the springs on the front struts are under compression, and a spring compressor tool will be necessary. I was able to compress them using ratcheting straps, but I would not recommend this as it was pretty sketchy and some may call it dangerous.
