[bradvabeach]

I recently change a strut on my 98 Grand Caravan. Not sure if the two years are the same. You have to compress the springs until it's not pushing on the housing. I have the two piece spring compressor and didn't have any problem with that. I did, however, have the same problem you described removing the strut bolt. The only way I could figure out to do it was with a pneumatic impact wrench. When reassembling, I tightened it up on the lowest setting of the impact wrench, then it had enough friction to allow me to use a torque wrench to torque the nut.