WRX 06 strut assembly swap on 92 legacy wagon awd

[volny]

Hi there!

sorry another strut question, read a lot already on the board and my head is about to explode.

I have this real good deal on wrx wagon 06 struts.

I wanna avoid the saggy butt issue replacing all four struts.

Can I just swap the front struts and keep stock struts on the rear or will I have the opposite problem, front way lower than rear, and would it be an issue as far as safety and car wear?

I havent found info on swapping the front struts only.

In case I wanna swap all four struts, I'll have to put back the leg wagon springs on the wrx struts for the rear is that right?

I need to make a decision by tomorrow...

cheers!

[Legacy777]

I know this is a late reply, but I would not recommend swapping just the front or the rear. The struts will have different damping/rebound rates which can cause the balance of the car to be altered if you use two different types/brands of struts.

I experienced this back in 2001 or so. I had monroe struts on the front, and then put KYB's on the rear. The car was extremely tail happy. I put KYB's on the front and that balanced the car out much better.

[volny]

THanks for the info Legacy!

I ended up buying both rear and front struts+ spring assembly from a WRX Wagon.

Hopefully the rear wrx wagon struts will not give a saggy butt syndrome...

Haven't worked on it yet. Need to get on it before my car gets bipolar D

[volny]

wooot wooot Just repleaced the front suspension, it's a big deal for me as I managed to do it all myself and I'm just learning to work on my car better late than never!

Okay for anybody wanting to do a front suspension swap in the future I found that that lifting the car on both sides and loosen up the bolts on both side and removing both wheels at the same time helps a great deal to put things back together. Got the tip from some youtube vid and trust me it works!

Had to zip tie the brake line though the holding clips would not fit on the new suspension. Actually I was out of zip ties so I used wire which I planning to replace by a strong zip tie , kinda freaks me out to know it's close to my brake line which is old.

No left is to bleed the brakes and do an alignment.

As far as I saw the wrx06 does not lower the car, it sits at the same height (unless my struts so worn out they were saggy)

Gota figure out rear suspension swap next week.

[volny]

one more note:

the repair manual says there is specific torque to each nut, is is something to trip about or not? I fastened evrything "hand Tight" whit my big hands...good enough?

[SILINC3R]

hand tight or wrench tight? i would just make sure to check it after several hundred miles. you would have to drive gravel roads everyday at big speeds to get the top hat nuts and lower strut bolts to come lose

[volny]

wrench hand tight


I was more worried about the camber bolt, I need to drive it tomorrow and not sure I can get an alignment on time

hand tight or wrench tight? i would just make sure to check it after several hundred miles. you would have to drive gravel roads everyday at big speeds to get the top hat nuts and lower strut bolts to come lose

[SILINC3R]

since the bolt is horizontal all the load of the vehicle is pressing down and the knuckle is trying to push back up and if you recall those are a pain to get in so you will be fine. i have never torqued anything as i didnt realy know about them when i started working on cars. again just check it out after a few hundred miles to see if they broke lose some how.

[volny]

DRove the car yesterday on freeway....so nice!

Haven't got an alignment yet, but I'm worried I may have messed the steering by forcing the first spring assembly I put in (first one was a bitch)....now I have to turn my steering wheel to the left to go straight....I'm afraid I messed some up, or the ball joint maybe. not sure, we'll see after I get rear suspension done and alignment

[SILINC3R]

You may have the spring seated incorrectly. I did this on my other car and the springs making a popping noise. Changed out the steering rack and got ne ball joints and everthing. Eventualy got WRX springs front and rear and installed them correctly Nd it stopped.

[volny]

I do have a slight popping noise every once in a while, but barely anything really...I hear it could be from mis-installing the top hats and/or top seats on the springs.....also I didnt pay attention if my steering wheel was straight when I installed them.

Anyway, will do the rear soon and get an alignment we'll see from there...

I loosened up the top hat nuts a bit to see if it would adjust itself by driving around town, and I see a lsight improvement (if I m not tripping:)

[criticalm@ss]

how did this turn out?
2006 wagon fit a 92-93 wagon??

[volny]

Turns out that the front wrx 06 fit perfectly the 92 wagon (struts are KYB btw).

I have to get started on the rear, that's where I may run into a problem from the info I gathered around. But so far it looks like it should fit too, hopefully I won't have to mess around and swap hats between the two...

Other than that , and the fact that I need an alignment real bad right now, the new suspension works awesome, my car is smooth again and it feels like I have bigger wheels when I drive...

[volny]

got to swap the rear strut assemblies today. Top hats are different, triangular (like the front ones) on the 92, half cercle shaped on the 06 wrx, if some wonder.

I didnt want to swap top hats as the old ones were shot, so we opted instead in drilling new hole for the wider bolt pattern on the 06 struts. seems to work okay. although the inner rubber circle of the top hats don't really match up with the cut out circles on the car body. Hopefully it's rubber and it will self adjust or mold it self in the long run.
I wonder if it is a big deal...

As far as suspension height, it looks like the rear 06 is about an inch shorter than the stock 92, although the car doesn't seem to butt sag with only a inch difference.
If I feel like a perfect adjustment maybe I can use some kind of spacers then?

I'll have to get the car aligned though to really give a feedback

[volny]

UPdate:


Received spacers last week, bought two sets of 3/8 hdpe spacers. I believe the difference in height from 92 rear strut to 06 wrx rear strut was 3/4" to maybe 1".

However the top hats bolts are limited in length, fortunately the wrx bolts are longer!

I only manged to add one 3/8 spacer on each strut, was fairly easy and quick job as I didn't have to take the whole assembly out!

SO for future reference, 3/8 spacer fit, and most likely you could up to 1/2", but that is only 1/8 difference ( would need two 1/4" spacer on top of each other).

It looks like it's pretty straight to me despite the spacer not being thick enough to fully make up for the strut height difference. I measured 9.5" from ground to car body on the front and 9.75" on the rear (plus tire pressure difference, car frame etc...)

Looks like it should be okay, right?

Top hats now fit nice and snug with the spacers too...good to know as well!

So anyway my two cents coming from a beginner