260z rear shock loose in tube

[toddcripe]

I'm doing some long overdue maintenance on 260z today.  When I jacked up the rear end the left wheel wouldn't come off the ground so I had to put a block of wood on jack to get it up another 4 inches.  In photo you can see the passenger side wheel is off the ground and suspension in a normal relaxed position.  The driver side is about six inches lower and wheel is only 1/2 inch off the ground.  The second photo shows the shock appears to have moved in the tube.

 

This is new, haven't seen this before when working on the car.  Anybody have any ideas on what has changed and why this is happening?  The reason I have it jacked up is because the rear brake reservoir is empty so I'm tracking down where the leak is.  May be related to this weird deal with the shocks or may be unrelated.

 

Appreciate any thoughts, thanks!

[jhm]

It's hard to tell from the pictures, but it appears that perhaps the gland nut on the left strut has unthreaded itself?  (Or maybe was never even installed....I can't see if there's a gland nut sitting on top of the shock body.)  But it looks like the shock body is sitting halfway outside the strut tube.  Obviously, the car should not be driven until this is rectified.  The shock (or "strut insert") should be completely inside the strut tube, and secured with a correctly-sized gland nut.  If you inspect the right side suspension, you'll see exactly what I'm talking about.

 

WRT your brake fluid....that has nothing to do with the shocks.  I would fill the reservoir, pump the brakes, and start tracking down where it's leaking.  May be leaking in several areas if seals have started to shrink or crack over a long period of non-use.

 

Hope this helps.  Good luck with it.

[walkerbk]

Yep. Gland nut came loose. With that you probably have a nice clunking noise every time you hit a bump. That noise is the bottom of your strut bouncing around in the housing.

 

With the gland nut coming off you probably screwed up the threads on the nut, the strut tube or both. You can try and clean the threads up and replace the nut, cross thread it and deal with it next time you replace the strut or just go coil overs.

 

I had this exact thing happen to me and I cross threaded the gland nut back on and will replace with coil overs once I am done moving.

[gnosez]

Loose gland for sure. Had the same thing happen on my 240 race car. It could have ended badly. It came loose once more and then I put in a new nut. When I have the car apart this winter I will get a tab welded on the tube so I can wire tie the gland nut to the strut.