Dan Sarandrea (Phila)
Waitin' On Parts...
My '86 has the original, stock Wayassauto non-gas struts all around.
Last year the right rear was replaced with a used OEM unit when it started to annoyingly squeak over every bump.
Recently I noticed unusual suspension behavior. The car seemed to be riding less smoothly with more impact jarring over these criminally horrible local roads. So I started testing, and when placing weight on the right front bumper the car would compress and rebound normally. But when doing that on the left front, there was very little compression.
So last nite I dropped the front left strut and spring assy and tried to compress it by leaning on it, but it would not budge. By contrast, I still had Mike Eastep's original suspension struts from when he slammed his '79, and I could get those fronts to compress a bit by leaning on them.
I took apart Mike's old strut (it was a bluish-silver painted KYB GR-2) and after disassembling my original and apparently-locked-solid unit, transferred my spring, perch, and upper mount bits to Mike's old strut.
Upon assembly and installation, the left front corner now compresses pretty much exactly as the right front and for all intents and purposes operates normally. Road test should happen within a day or two.
So here's the odd part. After removing the strut original to my car, I started working the operating rod. To my surprise, the rod would slide into the body of the strut but I could not get it to come up and out, regardless of how much force applied. So the strut exhibited an inability to compress on the car, but now off the car it's not able to rebound (come out of the body of the strut).
It's toast and will be trashed, but the fact that it did one thing on the car and the exact opposite off the car is the puzzling thing.
PS--Thanks to Mike Eastep for the spare parts!
PPS--Even though it's not ideal to have a mismatched set of struts on the car overall and even less so on one axle, I think I'll be OK for now as the driving season is winding down. Not sure if I will be doing KYBs all around, or Eurosport's or Henk's replacement struts, or some flavor of coil-over.
Last year the right rear was replaced with a used OEM unit when it started to annoyingly squeak over every bump.
Recently I noticed unusual suspension behavior. The car seemed to be riding less smoothly with more impact jarring over these criminally horrible local roads. So I started testing, and when placing weight on the right front bumper the car would compress and rebound normally. But when doing that on the left front, there was very little compression.
So last nite I dropped the front left strut and spring assy and tried to compress it by leaning on it, but it would not budge. By contrast, I still had Mike Eastep's original suspension struts from when he slammed his '79, and I could get those fronts to compress a bit by leaning on them.
I took apart Mike's old strut (it was a bluish-silver painted KYB GR-2) and after disassembling my original and apparently-locked-solid unit, transferred my spring, perch, and upper mount bits to Mike's old strut.
Upon assembly and installation, the left front corner now compresses pretty much exactly as the right front and for all intents and purposes operates normally. Road test should happen within a day or two.
So here's the odd part. After removing the strut original to my car, I started working the operating rod. To my surprise, the rod would slide into the body of the strut but I could not get it to come up and out, regardless of how much force applied. So the strut exhibited an inability to compress on the car, but now off the car it's not able to rebound (come out of the body of the strut).
It's toast and will be trashed, but the fact that it did one thing on the car and the exact opposite off the car is the puzzling thing.
PS--Thanks to Mike Eastep for the spare parts!
PPS--Even though it's not ideal to have a mismatched set of struts on the car overall and even less so on one axle, I think I'll be OK for now as the driving season is winding down. Not sure if I will be doing KYBs all around, or Eurosport's or Henk's replacement struts, or some flavor of coil-over.
