[manicmechanix]

Originally Posted by J-Ri

I have seen those struts before, "cartridge struts", you have to cut the weld and weld a new strut in to replace it. I/we won't mess with them! I only had to align one car that I had to elongate the strut tower holes for, and that was an assignment while I was in school. Definitely not the best way.

On those W-body cartridge struts, the '88 first year wasn't replaceable without cutting and welding but after 88 the strut cartridge will unbolt through the strut tower. If you have the strut tool set and do one of these it's easier than a regular strut. You should try it, you'd probably like doing them . That W-body set up requires elongated the strut tower holes to adjust camber though. My feeling is the facotry should've elongnated the bolts if that's what's necessary to adjust camber.

The thing is, even a degree or two on one side will make it pull quite a bit, if the car has 4k miles on it and the owner hit a curb pretty hard, it could easily make it pull, but the strut is probably still good. Just today I aligned a Chrysler 300, the camber was off by -.8 degrees and the caster off by +1.1 degrees on the right side... it pulled quite a bit. And guess what the recommended alignment procedure is? They say to loosen the engine cradle and move it to get the camber/caster They do make adjustment bolts, but moving the f****** engine cradle is the preferred method.

This is interesting stuff. Even less than a degree of caster can cause a strong pull. Might experience is that if a car hits a curb it's usually the strut being the weak link that gets bent first and sometime they will bind after being bent too. If it was my car I would replace the strut. Moving the engine cradle just seems crazy since you'd be moving so many other things' positions along with it. Deos the 300M have struts or a upper and lower control arms. I know some Chryslers have upper control arms, I'm not sure which ones.

You sure got me thinking on those two sided heads... I'm sure that by the time I get a car on the alignment rack that I'm able to turn the bolt by hand with a wrench if I choose. Do the splines bite into the knuckle or just the strut? I wonder if maybe the replacement struts we get have larger holes? While they do make sockets for those bolts, I don't have them. I tend to look only at what I'm working on, it's possible I may be thinking of Toyota cars which I know for a fact have hex-head bolts, and the front suspension is surprisingly similar. Are you sure that all GMs with that design have two sided bolts? I sure think I've done that on them, but you've got me to thinking I do that on something else... I just go,go,go... at the end of a busy day I couldn't tell you what the make of that day's first car was. My mind's razor sharp on some things, but on other things... CRS A co-worker got me pretty good by walking up to me holding a pushrod while I was just finsihing up a 3.1l lower intake. I was sure I would have put them all back in, but I sure don't remember it , he told me he was joking around before I took anything back off... but he sure had me on that! The next time I have the struts off one I'll try to remember to pay attention and I'll post back with what I do.

That's understandable, I forget things all the time. All the GM strut bolts I've seen had the two-sided bolt heads but I can't say they all do. Maybe Chryslers have hex heads. On the GM strut there's like an inner metal part with "teeth" that grab the knuckle. I think the splines grab on the inner layer of the strut and the knuckle as well.

My impact is rated that torque @ 90 PSI, our shop air compressor kicks on at 150 PSI and the regulator's set to 175 PSI, so I'm sure that adds at least 50% to the output

Yeah you got the full sized 2-stage compressor . But did you mean the compressor tank is set to 175 psi or the regulator to your impact 175 psi too and not 90 psi? I only run 90 psi because I'd think higher would damage my impact.