First off, My tires lean in a good bit more so then I thought. I'm hoping a alinement can pull them back out...... hoping.....

2nd. Any idea how long Tanabes take to fully settle?

Onto my #@$)(_$#@ story.

I've always been a handy kind of person when it comes to cars, I've always done my own work on all of my past cars (other then the engine build on the turbo civic) and have never run into many issues - not having "insert tool here" to do some weird job.

Last time I did springs it took me all of 1 hour maybe 90 mins. I figured it would take a tad bit longer since I'm new to how the rears on the 350Z is setup.

I start with the rears first to get them out of the way. I get both done in about 30 mins. I move to the front and my god did I have problems. after being able to break all the bolts free I couldnt get the sway bar (part that goes to the lower A arm.) to come out. even with a big hammer... nothing!
I removed the upper A arm in order to give me some more room down below, I was hoping to free up enough room to remove the piece from the strut bar, nope turns out it seems you have to remove that. so I bolted the A arms back up and worked with pulling as with moving the aarms up and down and I was (after too long) able to get it to pop out. YAY score!

I get my spring compressor out and compress the spring. it took awhile and a lot of elbow greese but and sure enough after awhile it came out.

Now I'm @#$#@$ up a storm becuase Nissan used that dumb as-s bolt on the top of the strut, (honda uses allen keys, makes it 10xs easier. I had to rig of my chanellocks (SP?) as with some long needle nose plyers and from there I was able to use my 17mm wrench to break the bolt loose. after removing everything and cutting a tiny bit of my bump stop off. I went to put the new spring back on the old strut, all was well till I had to put the top nut back on. it made it about half way and then got stuck! I couldnt tighten or losen the damn nut, (do keep in mind every nut so far I've let soke in WD40) I figured the shaft or nut most have got F-ed up somewhere along the line and IMO the strut will have to be replaced, so I got to the point where I didnt care about messing it up and used bruit force to try and remove the nut so I could clean the threads and rethread them if needbe.... no luck. So I figured hell I might as well try and tightin it all the way down if it snaps or strips then F it I will just buy a new strut and hax saw the old one apart so I can get my spring back. but sure enough after who knows how much time I was able to force the nut tight. I can't believe it didnt snap!
Once this is done I put the spring compresser back on and try to get it back in.... no luck. so I moved the spring com and still no luck. I couldnt get the thing tight enough to fit over the lower aarm. so I removed once again the upper Aarm for a tad bit more room. thankfully a tad bit more room + a lot of pulling down worked out for me and I was able to get it back on.

The other side I went ahead and from the get go removed the upper Aarm, swaybar, lower strut bolt, top 3 bolts and the brake lines.
slaped the spring Com on and off the struit came. I made sure it was all nice and lubed up before moving onto the nest dreaded strut mount nut. thankfully this side wasnt an issue once I broke it free I was able to use my fringers for the most part to back it out. same for going on I used my fingers till it was almost all the way in place. I slaped the strut back up in the car and torqued everything down.


Rear took about 30 mins each. the front passanger side took about 30-45 mins.

I started at 7 and was done at 1:30

I feel bad for anyone who happened to walk by my garage becuase I was PISSED!!!!!

I've NEVER EVER EVER EVER had as hard of a time working with any car item as I did that friggin strut!!! I started to think about back up rides for going to work since my car was blocking my bike in.

My old turbo civic one day broke all the engine mount bolts and my engine droped down thankfully onto my exhuast that kept it off the ground.
I had to drill and back out all of the bolts that were super strong, I ate up too many drill bits. bottom line even with having no space it was a much better job then this damn spring job.

Im guessing if it was an 05 maybe even 04 it wouldnt have been so bad. but damn my 03 was giving me hell today!



1 out of 10 on level of how hard it is to do.

rear struts maybe 3 at most,
front struts, the bad one I delt with 17, the other side 6

Over all I would rate the job a 5. not really hard, I just had a lot of problems that shouldnt have been.

Now I need to get an alinement as soon as I feel it has settled and HOPE that it pulls everything back into spec. IMO I doubt it will becuase the camber is way off. but I can still hope.

P.S I always wear gloves when working on my cars/bikes but after 4 hours or so and umpteen pair of gloves I stoped wearing them since my hands were pretty f-ed up as is, right now my hands look as if I have some weird disease. I had blood all over my shorts it looked as if I spilled red paint on them =) I didnt even see it till I was done. also the skin is pilling in many different areas.a few smashed fingers and bruses. my hands look as if I got into a really bad fight. the nuckles are just nasty. ohwell =)

P.S.S Im going off no sleep and have to get up in 5 hours to work a 13-14 hour day that will be 98% on my feet running around.

I could care less about grammar or spelling issues so to anyone that cares =)

GOOD NIGHT!

 

Daaaang your hands are so ****ed up,yet you manage to write half a book on what hapend with the spring install.....you're my IDOL!Now move your *** over here because my car needs a drop!!

Good Job Bro!
Now go get some sleep!

 

Yeah, I know how you feel. I'm used to doing all my own work too. I have a '97 Eagle Talon TSi AWD that i did everything myself (including bodywork for the body kit, just not paint) I'd changed out the suspension in that thing so many times, that the last set of coilovers I put in took about an hour and that included adjusting the ride height for the individual corners so it would sit level.

Long story short: I took one look at the z and said "f-it, I'm paying for someone else to do it"

 

Buddy of mine lives next door and has a shop and one mean a$$ lift so hopefully i can use it. If not, ill fork the money over..

 

Wow. Even though the front took me longer than the rear, I didn't have those issues. I didn't even need the spring compressor as the spring/shock are not under that much tension.

I guess I was lucky.

 

did you buy your car new? If so I have no idea how you managed to get the strut/springs out of the car. I couldnt even put the new shorter ones back in with out using it.

 

When you wipe the blood off your camera, how about some pics of your drop?? Hehe sorry man.

I do most work on the motorcycles I've had over the years but never heavy duty mechanical or engine tranny work on cars. I like doing body and interior work but that's about it.

 

Wow, that sounded like the most difficult spring install of all time.

 

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What bolt are you talking about? theres 2 I believe 14mm bolts that hold the aarms to the body of the car then at the end theres another bolt that connects the side piece "where the wheel goes" to the upper a arm. If you're talking about that piece then I didnt remove it I had no reason to.

That should be mounted on some type of ball joint Im not sure if you unbolt it or use a pickle fork to remove it. either way I didnt have to do it.

 

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Hehe, I did this twice on my 03 because I installed springs first then shocks later. I didn't have any problems and didn't need the spring compressors at all either, plus they take time and get in the way. It was all about angles and with the A-Arm detached from the lower arm, the lower arm can really be pushed down to create a lot of room. Wait until you install a set of headers, then you will really hate working on this car

 

I would have much rather installed headers then deal with that F-ed up strut.

it's one thing to not have a lot of clearance it's another thing to have something that at one point makes you think about taking a hax saw to it and buying a new one.


I didnt remove the lower Aarm I thought about it but was able to pull down on the upper aarm enough to "with spring compress" remove the strut.

Im about to post some pics up in a few

 

HAHA! After reading everything you went through, I can just imagine the state of mind you were in to write that. Made me laugh.

 

Yup, it's definately a pain to get the strut in and out.
I always unbolt the upper A-arm from the knuckle and let the brake line loose. Also the sway link to the lower arm is usually easy to unbolt (got to hold the other end with a open ended wrench though).
When I did my Koni's, I spent about 1.5hrs trying to get the lower strut bolt to thread into the welded nut. Got so pissed I went and bought a reciprocating sawzall and cut the nut off Ended up that the nut was f'd up and it wasn't just an alignment issue.

 

last night I was doing the dreaded dead of removing that Fukced up strut! #%@#^%$&#$&!!!! I'm at the point where I can't get the damn lower part of the strut to raise up and over the lower control arm.

 

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I just found this thread : https://my350z.com/forum/showthread....springs+struts .
I should have problems 2nite!

 

i've done it on an e46 M3 and holy $hit, i know how you feel bro! as i put coilovers into the Z, you can bet your A$$ i appreciated not having to do a spring swap.

when i installed the coilovers on the Z, i had to unbolt the sway and i friggin stripped the bushing bolt! good thing a friend of mine is a mechanic and had an A++++ rethreading kit by MATCO that fixed me right up. needless to say, i was FRUSTRATED!

atleast you were able to get it done though, that's a huge blessing compared to having to leave it on Jackstands overnight

 

LOL. It's still on jackstands. I'm gonna go at it again tonight. Now that I have pictures and instructions, it should be a breeze.