Estimated labor cost to repalce struts on 240z

[AndysPlit]

I will be attempting this for the first time relatively soon. I'm a little scared, but I'm up for the challenge. I just replaced my 280Z raditaor and water pump, and have done other fixes on my own.......It cannot be more difficult that replacing the radiator on a Z31 . That is a job I will never ever do again on those cars.

[Hardway]

Do all your estimates include "The Hardway Surcharge" for when it's supposed to be easy but turns into a nightmare? :knockedou

! Yeah, need to add in there that Andy might need to buy a slide hammer with all the attachments since one of my struts refused to come out of the tube.

[dltalfa]

OK,..so first of all, THANK YOU to everyone who has responed to my two prior threads regarding replacing my struts.

UPDATE: We replaced the back struts last night. Not a terribly complicated job and easier than I had feared. It did take a long time though. We started at 6:30 and didn't get finished until around 9:30,...including clean up. Three hours to do just the back. The first side took much longer as we were learning as we went. The second one took less than an hour.

NOW MY NEW CONCERN: I was replacing the struts becasue my car rode very rough and "bottomd out" on every small dip,...with a hard "clunk". It rode like a car that had been lowered. When you tried to "bounce" it, there was almost no movement to the car. Every bump in the road was a jaring thump. So,...I assumed my struts were collapsed or frozen up.

To my great disapointment,..after we replaced the rear struts last night,...it rides exactly the same. What else could it be? What would make the car ride like that other than the struts?

It is all stock and sits up nicely all the way around. It just doesn't have much movement to the suspensions,...front or rear.

[Hardway]

First off, did you install a bump stop at the of the strut under the spring hat? When car is on the ground, how much of the shock piston is exposed? Does it look like this below? If it does then you probably have some sort of lowering spring or the stock springs have been cut. What color are your springs?

Sounds like you have or possibly two issues at play here. No bump stop, lowering springs, or both.

[dltalfa]

No,...I did not replace anything except the strut cartridge. I don't think I have lowerd springs. I bought the car from the 75 year old original owner a few years ago. It still had the origna hb caps and original radio in it. I would doubt he had lowered springs added.

Here is a picture of mine for comparison to yours Hardway.

[Hardway]

I agree, those don't look like lowering spring but I don't see a bump stop on there either. That is not the end of the world per se but not good as it should ahve one. If the springs have become weak it may still be bottoming out and letting the spring hat hit the top of the gland nut for the strut tube. I would say get the whole car on 4 good jack stands and inspect everything in the rear. Sounds like you have a busted bushing or mount somewhere.