Report / How-to: replace struts on '94 wagon

[SwedishChef]

Hi guys, just thought I'd share my experience.

I recently bought a 94 wagon with 210k miles on it. It was bouncing over everything and the shocks were shot. The rear seemed to be worse than the front. I decided to replace all the shocks.

After looking at what was available and my (low) budget, I decided on a set of 4 KYB GR-2 shocks. KYB has an excellent reputation, and while I really wanted the AGX line for its adjustability, it was out of my price range. I looked at everything. Originally I wanted the new Bilstein coilovers, but they were WAY out of my budget. The Koni's were also highly recommended, but again, just out of my budget. I also ordered 4 new KYB boots.

I hadn't had the original shocks out, so I didn't know what kind of shape the springs, tophats or seats were in. I know that you're ideally supposed to put in new tophats when you change struts, but that was out of my budget so I had to hope for the best with only new struts and boots.

I had done a strut change on my previous 95 Legacy sedan, putting the Bilsteins in from a JDM "GTB" wagon, so I knew it wasn't a very difficult job (when I did that, it was on the side of the narrow roads out in front of my home back in England). Also, I didn't have to change those springs either—it was a used set and the springs were still good.

Now that I'm back in the States and have a big garage, the job was a lot nicer. In one night, my housemate Brian and I did both front struts—swapping the old springs into the new struts.

A note about the brake line retainers
These Gen 1's (not sure about Gen 2's) have a fully-enclosed brake line retaining loop welded onto the strut itself. This is annoying because it basically requires you to 'open' the brake lines to remove each strut, which would then require bleeding. I didn't want to do this, so I took my angle grinder and VERY carefully ground out a rectangular section where the bottom of the "U" clip goes. I did this on both the old struts to remove the brake line, and on the new struts to re-install the brake line. Many newer struts/cars have this little gap already. Ours don't, so I put it there.

It's worth noting that, in order for the "U" clips to work after grinding the gap, be sure your grinds are centered on the bracket and clean of burrs—you don't want something puncturing the brake line. If you do a clean grind, the lines will slide right in and the clips will work normally. It's probably a good idea to just buy a new set of clips before starting—mine were corroded and needed to be replaced.

Here's the process I did for each corner:

1. Loosen wheel nuts
2. Jack up corner onto jack stand
3. remove wheel
4. remove brake line retaining clip (flat screwdriver carefully positioned, light taps with rubber mallet)
5. grind gap to remove brake line on existing strut
6. Apply PB Blaster to x2 19mm bolts holding the lower strut to the steering knuckle
7. At the front, that top-most bolt is used for camber, so I marked an alignment line using a silver sharpie
8. remove x2 19mm bolts at steering knuckle
9. remove x3 12mm nuts at tophat
10. remove strut (being careful not to damage outer CV boot)
11. grind gap in brake line bracket on new strut
12. hit the grind with a dash of Rustoleum spray to prevent rust
13. using a set of spring compressors, compress spring back-and-forth on each compressor to maintain compression equality
14. I used a silver Sharpie to mark alignment of the tophat and it's seat to the spring
15. once spring wobbles inside housing, grip strut tube with something like a channel-lock plier or Vise-Grip to prevent rotation and SLOWLY remove 17mm top nut from old strut (if you haven't compressed the spring enough, this will shoot off the top!)
16. remove tophat and top spring mount housing (note the order in which they are stacked)
17. remove spring and transfer it the correct side up to the new shock
18. carefully remove bottom spring seat from old strut and transfer to new strut, properly aligned
19. carefully and precisely transfer compressed spring to new strut, align bottom spring end to new strut's bottom spring seat
20. if you have it, install new strut boot (you should use a boot, preferably a new one that is designed for your new strut)
21. re-place tophat assembly onto new strut and hand-tighten 17mm top nut (if you can't get enough thread, tighten the spring compressors more and ensure your boot isn't getting in the way. If it is, force it down the piston a little further.)
22. slowly and evenly release spring tension on spring compressors, watching spring seat alignment as you go
23. place new strut assembly into position
24. align tophat bolts into holes and hand-tighten 12mm nuts x3
25. align bottom strut mount to 19mm knuckle holes and install the BOTTOM-most bolt
26. install the top-most 19mm knuckle bolt ensuring your marks are aligned
27. tighten 19mm bolts to about 100nm (!)
28. tighten tophat bolts (not sure of torque)
29. re-place the brake line into the new, ground bracket
30. re-install brake line clip (if you did a nice, clean, centered grind, the clip will work the same)
31. have a friend grip the strut tube while you tighten the top 17mm strut bolt (my old ones were not very tight)
32. re-install wheel, you're done! On to the next corner.


After doing all 4 corners, my car rides like new, even with the old (probably factory) springs. It's a huge improvement in ride quality for a budget of about $300. I'm not going to be tackling Pike's Peak anytime soon, but for a daily driver, it's an easily-noticeable improvement.

Down the line I will replace all the tophats... mine were not in great shape. If you're smart and have the cash, you'll buy new ones and do them at the same time as the new struts. From my research, the best ones for this car are either factory or MOOG for the rear tophats, or factory / Whiteline / MOOG for the fronts. All my spring seats seemed to be in fine shape, and I'm guessing that I replaced the factory struts on my 210k mile 94 wagon.

Good luck and let me know if I forgot anything!
Chris

[Legacy777]

Chris,

Thanks for sharing the how-to. New struts really are the main thing that improves handling. Unless the top mounts have dry rot or cracked rubber they should be ok. The springs really don't wear out. So the new KYB's should be enough to make the handling quit a bit better. I know they did for my car many years ago.


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