I'm in the middle of installing new struts on the front.
I just got the driver's side done. The Haynes says to torque the damper shaft nut with the car on the ground. I'm at that point but can't get the nut to turn without turning the damper shaft. This is the absolute last thing I need to do to finish up the driver's side.
How is this supposed to be done?

All u need to do is get a wrench onto the nut, The little metal numb above the nut, Just get a pair of needle nose lock pilars, To hold the piece of metal until you get the nut tighen.

Good Luck.

That's pretty much how the book says to do it but the nut won't go down far enough. When the threads hit the plastic washer inside the nut they grab and I can't get it tightened past that point.

If you have one at your disposal, i'd just blast it with an impact wrench until the nut goes down far enough to get pliers on there. If you don't have an impact, you may have to put the spring compressors back on and get slack in the spring so that you can thread the nut further down before taking the compressors off.

I'm trying everything suggested. I even tried a pair of vice grips on the shaft cushioned with a piece of leather so I wouldn't scratch it. Still didn't work.
Blasting it with an impact wrench I don't think is going to do anything because of the nylon. It's just going to grab as usual and make the shaft spin.
Any other ideas?

I usually put the mount on outside of the car using an impact wrench. I could never figure out how to get it done on the car.


Ryan1

I'm going to try the impact wrench this afternoon when I get home. I was going to do it last night but I don't think my neighbors would be too happy with me, especially with the air compressor kicking on at 9:30 at night.
I read somewhere that the damper shaft shouldn't turn with the car's weight sitting on it. I wish this was the case. I'm going to try sitting on the fender while I use the impact wrench.

The car's weight should have no effect on whether the shaft spins or not. The impact should work. Just do quick jabs of the trigger. What you want is the nut to spin a bit before the shaft starts spinning. Then stop the impact, then jab again...keep doing that, and it will go down.

No dice on anything guys. The nut just isn't going down farther than the point where the metal stops and the nylon washer starts. No matter what I do I can't get it to go any farther. I've even put a pair of needle nose vice grips on the nut and tried turning the shaft with a 10mm wrench and that doesn't even work. Tried soaking in Liquid Wrench, nothing's working.
I guess the biggest problem is that the nut and shaft are recessed into the upper shock mount about 2" and there's no way I can get a wrench around the nut itself even if the whole unit is out of the car. The book shows them being almost flush with the top. I guess the earlier Cavaliers had that setup.
I'm scared to drive it anywhere. I do have to go get it aligned and I'm wondering if it will be safe to just drive it to the shop and have them do it when they do the alignment.

You know, I just thought of something. My impact wrench doesn't spin all that fast. Could it be I just need to get a better one that runs high RPMs?

why not take the strut and the mount off the car entirely and put it on a vice and impact the nut down? To keep the shaft from spinning use a pair of vice grips on it in a place near the top as the shaft doesn't fully go down ever, This way you are not damaging the seal and you are getting the nut tightened.

That's how I do it.

Keep in mind when that nut is tightened on the shaft, it's JUST a hair lower then the shaft threads. Some will say its "flush" with the threads.




Ryan1

I hit the nut down, while its on the spring compressor.




- 2004 Cavalier - 124k, owned since new

Ryan1
I think you're on to something. The top of the nut is flush with the threads and the top of the shaft (hex part) is completely above the nut. According to your post, I've got them down as far as they will go.
The problem is that there's another 1/2" of space between the bottom of the nut and the bottom of the "cup" it's sitting in. There's no way to put the strut assembly together wrong, so I'm stumped. I have no idea where the extra 1/2" is coming from.
Back to square 1 I guess. I've been thinking about putting another larger nut in there to act as a big spacer to make up the 1/2". I double checked the part number on the box vs. the part number on Autozone's website and they're the same.
Am I missing something? Is it possible to put the strut together wrong?

I would compress the spring and put the nut on that way. The spring might be holding everything up.

Look at the other side to check to see u have it all installed correctly


Ryan1

I just went to Autozone again and ordered the '99 strut mounts. At least I won't have this problem anymore.
I'll tighten the nut down while the assembly is out of the car when I put the mounts in. Can't believe this has been such a problem. The car's been undriveable for almost two weeks now because of these stupid nuts.

After re-reading this, I realized that I had this problem once on a sunfire. I believe either the nut or strut thread was damaged and the nut would only thread part ways down. I ended up loading it up with washers to take up the slack. It has been fine for a year now.

if you have a tap/die set, you could try chasing the threads of both nut/shaft and trying again.