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Rear strut assembly issue


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So I'm trying to install K-Mac camber plates in the rear, with the ground control coilover kit, sectioned strut tubes, and tokico illumina struts.  The issue I'm having is ensuring the strut top hat nut is torqued to spec.  With the stock insulators, they notch in.  However, the K-Mac has a spherical bearing and no such notch.

 

Here's what the strut looks like attached to the K-mac tophat:

20150222 163855 (Large)

 
The topside view of the strut and topnut:

20150222 163840 (Large)

 
The original setup / stock insulator, note the notch that locks the strut to the tophat:

20150222 163947 (Large)

 

 

About all I can get is ~25 ft/lbs on the assembly (using vice grips and a rag).  To get it any tighter I'd risk marring the surface of the strut shaft, likely causing damage to the seal.

 

I have K-Macs on the front as well, but the MR2 tokico struts have a notch in the upper part of the shaft that I was able to lock into place with an open ended wrench.  As you can see from the pictures, the 240z tokico struts do not.  The only notching is in the threaded section, with is inaccessible once installed in the K-macs.

 

I'm honestly not sure how anyone could secure the topnut using this kit, the way it's designed.  Assuming that ~25 ft/lbs is not nearly enough, does anyone have any suggestions at all for how to properly install this?  Thanks in advance for someone pointing out something that I'm hopefully missing!   :-)

 

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I don't recall the spec for this, but it's pretty low. A guy I used to autox with busted the top of his strut off overdoing it.

 

I use an impact gun and just hit it really quick with the gun turned way down. With an impact you could hold the shock shaft by hand and still get a lot of torque on the nut.

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Had an extra rear lying around and was able to machine the stepped surface (directly below the threaded part) to fit an 18mm wrench. In a vise, putting 50 ft/lbs on it with the wrench was no problem.

 

Can you think of any reason not to go ahead and go this route? It's on a surface of the strut that does not compress into the canister. It's the only way I can see to lock the shaft in place and get measurable torque on the upper nut...

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