So when you turn, does the strut shaft itself turn?

No.

 

So I found this strut video

If you go to 7:59 you see how its hard for him to turn it to align the holes. How can the van turn whan the strut is that hard to turn??

Thx!

 

power steering.

 

Hydraulics offer a tremendous mechanical advantage over human strength.

 

You can turn it, but it stiff

 

Are you talking about the nut on top of the strut? If yes the best tool to use would be a to use a impact while holding the strut from below.

 

So when you turn, does the strut shaft itself turn?
View attachment 17241

Depends what you mean. It does not turn where it mounts to the body but the strut body does turn on the shaft. It's hard to turn because the spring has a huge amount of pressure on it plus the rod is fully extended when jacked up. It shouldn't feel too tight when turning the wheel with engine off assuming it is jacked up.

 

When changing the struts, it is much easier to attach the top three bolts first (loosely) and then it is not that hard to turn the bottom to align the strut for the two lower bolts. You can use a jack to lift up the rotor to get the final alignment. I just did both of my struts and done this way, you just grab the bottom part of the strut and turn it by hand.

 

exactly how i do it, every strut ive ever installed takes my 2 hands to turn the top bearing plate so it can line up fairly close, strut bearings are very very hard to turn by hand when they are not blown out.

 

I did the repair over the weekend. 2002 with 260,000 km.. car front now is as tight as new...
here are my comments:
1: removing the strut was relatively easy. The 2 main strut bolts and the 3 top nuts came off easy. However, the sway bar link nuts and bolts where very rusty. I cut them off! needless to say, have replacements! There is also the brake line and ABS speed sensor cabling...one bolt each.

2: the standard spring compressor that I had was not sufficient, i had to use 2 sets, that is 4 compressors. First two compressors on 3 coils, then once they where compressed a bit I was able to fit 2 more spring compressors to cover 4 coils.

3: The OEM strut on top had an allen key slot in order to hold it from turning while unscreweing or screwing in the nut. The KYB replacement simply had 2 flats so I used an adjustable wrench to hold it.

4: While you have everything apart, change the bump stops too.. I did not.. I should have... I also wanted to change both sway bar rubber bushings but I could only change the left side. The right side had hoses next to the bolt and I could not undo it. Oh well... howerver the bolts where quite rusted...

5: assembly was not difficult. Remember to re-alling the top spring mount. The top and bottom have a small hole that face outward. I used a small jack to push up the strut while turning to align the 4 bolts.

6: Overall the job was physically demanding... but apart from compressing the springs it was not technically difficult. The toughest parts where removing the sway bar strut nuts and the sway bar bushing bolts and the spring of course. Those tasks took most of the time. Actually removing and reinstalling the strut is about 30 minutes or less, so 2 hours total. The rest was changing the spring, sway bar strut and bushing.