Lithium grease on the bottom of the strut insert should be safe.

Edited March 16, 20186 yr by 240260280

ditto on some grease just to keep them from rusting in place.

I like this idea...seems the best of what is possible. I'm hoping the shocks come in today and I can get the car back on its wheels soon enough. We still have plenty of ice and snow in MN, but I want to be ready the minute it melts! LOL!

White lithium grease is more forgiving to rubber however Sylglide (silicone grease) or dielectric grease (similar) would be fine to use as well.

Finished with the shock replacement yesterday, and I was also installing new ball joints, tie rods, etc. For the record, the KYB Excel G shocks (I purchased them from MSA) fit fine, and I didn't need washers, etc. to make them tight. I added a little grease at the bottom to prevent sticking, but they went in smoothly. Also, it could be the Tokico Illuminas I had installed were totally shot (I know there was some air in them), but the resistance of the KYBs seemed to feel about like "setting 3" in terms of resistance and maybe "setting 1 or 2" in terms of rebound.

Additional note 1: The instructions are very misleading, and if you don't look at the pictures carefully (there are no words), step 1 makes it look like you are supposed to drill into the shocks and oil them. After closer examination, that's for a different style, and the instructions for these (also no words) warns against opening them at all. 

Additional note 2: While not connected to this topic/thread, both threaded bolts for the ball joint on the passenger side twisted off when I tried to torque them (FSM says 40-50). They were 10.9 grade bolts but had clearly weakened. I replaced all four to be safe. Scary. It almost seemed like they had hollowed out on the inside (they looked fine when I took them out).

Finally, I was also trying to level the car some, and so I took one coil off the Eibach springs (the top 5 coils just sit on top of one another when the car is loaded), which should reduce the front by approximately 3/8"; it's hard to tell if that will be enough, but I'm going to run with it for now.

Is that broken bolt OE?  It doesn't look like a Nissan bolt from the pic.

I was wondering the same thing. I don't think that's OEM.

z boy mn, What makes you so sure that bolt was grade 10.9? It has the grade marked on the head?

As an aside... I verified the FSM spec, but 50 ft-lb sure seems a lot for a bolt that size.

On ‎3‎/‎18‎/‎2018 at 8:50 AM, z boy mn said:

Additional note 1: The instructions are very misleading, and if you don't look at the pictures carefully (there are no words), step 1 makes it look like you are supposed to drill into the shocks and oil them. 

Maybe that part of the documentation was instructions on how to dispose of the old struts? Drill a small hole to release the pressure first, and then chuck them.

I hate the international "icon only" based instructions. I wonder if they make sense to people in other parts of the world, because they certainly don't make sense to me at this part of the globe.

Factory specs for Ball Joint to Transverse Link ( LCA ) is 13.7 to 18.0 Ft Lbs. It's only an 8 mm bolt!!

Maybe you were looking at the spec for steering arm bolts... which are 53 to 72 Ft/lbs??  I believe those are a 12mm bolt. 50 - 72 ft/lbs makes sense on those. Not on the Ball Joint mounting bolts though. 

 

Edited March 19, 20186 yr by Chickenman

Yeah, I immediately thought 50 was way too high, but I don't have the FSM handy, so I didn't comment on that.  I knew someone would correct him if it was indeed wrong.  

HI everyone, I totally got the number wrong for that bolt in my head! I'm pretty sure my goal was 25, which was also too high. Maybe I misread the FSM as I couldn't find a nice table like the one above. 

Also, I don't know how to tell if it was an OE bolt or not, but the head was stamped 10.9, so that's the kind of bolt I used to replace it. Well actually, I replaced all of them.

As for twisting off, it didn't make it to 15 lbs of torque...maybe not even 5. When I looked at it, it almost looked hollow. Of course, that was also after it got twisted off. I was guessing maybe it was where the bolts got weak from use?

Finally, the instructions for the shocks were shockingly bad! Good thing I turned the paper over. Looks like the first set were for rear shocks...ones with a bolt pass-through of sorts built in.

Edited March 20, 20186 yr by z boy mn

Might be 10.9, but it looks like a Chinese hardware store bolt to me.