Front strut woes

1997GT4.6

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Hey fellas: Got a question for you suspension wiz's. Actually it's not a very complicated question. I lowered my 58k mile Cobra with Ford B springs and left the stock struts/shocks and of course they stopped providing dampening and just completely blew out (testing the if you have low miles theory they should hold up a bit, yeah right lol). Replaced them with eibach pro dampers because AM was out of stock on tokico blues, the front struts I got tokico blues. Well 2 months time passed with that set up and the front tokico blues are shot now: The ride is all bouncy and rough as expected when they blow out; but WTF how did they go bad in just 2 months????? Were they defective or was there a mistake on the install by me? I mean I did they install for the same exact struts/shocks on the GT using the blues and they are perfectly fine 2 years in. SO bad batch of struts that I received or did I mess something up??

This was install process:
1. Jack car up
2. take off wheels
3. Put light pressure on control arm with jack for preloading purposes
4. Using impact gun take off top nut on strut under the hood.
5. Remove 1 nut holding the abs bracket
6. Remove 2 lower bolts holding strut to spindle.
7. Relieve some tension on control arm and strut basically slipped right out.
8. Install was the reverse although I can't remember if I tightened the bottom 2 nuts or the top strut nut first on the installation of the tokico
(not sure if doing 1 before the other even matters) (also tightened as much with the impact gun as possible, max of 100psi on crappy impact gun; shaft spun after it tightened as much as it could be with the impact gun.)

Is any part of my installation wrong??? (might be forgetting to include something simple here) I for sure did not use any tools on the shiny rod that goes into the strut whatever it's called.

Sorry for the long detailed post lol. I'm just tired of driving my car with these worn out POS struts. I haven't even wanted to continue modding it or working on it at all. I was going to do a 100 shot, gears, DR's, subframes, intake and tuner by now but ran into the stupid strut issue and it kind of brought me down and I haven't wanted to anything on it anymore unfortunately.
 

JRad405

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It's probably a bad strut. I don't know if they have a warranty on them but if they do call tokico and explain the situation. You could try AM but typically the manufacturer has the warranty and will be able to address the situation better. AM maybe able to help you get in touch with them, but I wouldn't expect them to replace the part.
 
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1997GT4.6

1997GT4.6

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It's probably a bad strut. I don't know if they have a warranty on them but if they do call tokico and explain the situation. You could try AM but typically the manufacturer has the warranty and will be able to address the situation better. AM maybe able to help you get in touch with them, but I wouldn't expect them to replace the part.

I'm hoping the struts were both just defective and it wasn't an error in install, I mean you can't really do much wrong when installing those besides not using tools on the shiny rod part. They do from Tokico, but they won't answer the phone, return messages nor emails. Yeah AM told me it has to be within 30 days and not have been used on the car; but wtf how do you know they are defective until you use them?! I've already bought 2 replacements for them now on my own since I've had no luck with Tokico. Just haven't installed them because I'm being cautious of them again since the last 2 blew up. Damn $200 right out to the trash!
 

CC'S95GT

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that wierd. My son is running B's on his 98gt with the stock struts and hasn't had a prob in over a year.
I had stock struts on my sportlines for over 2 years with no issues either.
Granted the ride wasn't as good as my koni's but hardly considered blown out.

On the top nut, did you hold the center shaft still while you tightened the nut to the proper torque?
 

Mystic SVT

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You shouldn't use the impact gun when tightening the strut shaft bolt. You need to do it by hand making sure to not spin the shaft, you probably damaged the seals when you tightened them with the impact. The top of the shaft should have a nipple that you can put a crescent wrench on and tighten the nut with an open end wrench.
 
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1997GT4.6

1997GT4.6

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that wierd. My son is running B's on his 98gt with the stock struts and hasn't had a prob in over a year.
I had stock struts on my sportlines for over 2 years with no issues either.
Granted the ride wasn't as good as my koni's but hardly considered blown out.

Really? How many miles on your son's car? Wow, well I guess I went wrong with tightening the top nut with the impact gun, as the shaft kept spinning and wouldn't tighten too well. Might be the problem. I do recall not having an impact gun when I did my GT and it came out fine. Maybe I could have driven on the stock parts for some time if I hadn't used the impact gun on those as well, darn. Those Koni's are great I hear. Thanks for the input!
On the top nut, did you hold the center shaft still while you tightened the nut to the proper torque?

You shouldn't use the impact gun when tightening the strut shaft bolt. You need to do it by hand making sure to not spin the shaft, you probably damaged the seals when you tightened them with the impact. The top of the shaft should have a nipple that you can put a crescent wrench on and tighten the nut with an open end wrench.

Ahhhh I understand now. No wonder there's a sticker on the rod that says, "WARNING do not use air tools on shaft, will cause damage to seals." I had a tard moment and thought don't touch the shiny part of the shaft with tools lol. Yeah and I continued to have at it with the impact gun, even after the shaft was spinning. Well in this, the tokico blues have a slit on the top of the shaft not a nipple. But just gotta find a trick to get a large screw driver or some thing else to stop the shaft from spinning and go by hand with an open end wrench. And actually I tried that, and couldn't get the shaft to stop spinning while it went to work with the open end wrench so I decided to use the impact gun.

You live and you learn I guess. Thanks for correcting me fellas!
 

Musturd

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Depending on the height of ur car.. You might want to look into fox struts if it's pretty low
 
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1997GT4.6

1997GT4.6

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Depending on the height of ur car.. You might want to look into fox struts if it's pretty low

Ford B springs man, like a 1.25" drop claim. More like a 1" up front and .75" out back. A little disappointing, but I'm still scraping on speed bumps when there is a passenger in the car and it's definitely not huge passengers (100-120lbs chicks and some friends wayyy less than 200lbs). Sucks because I want to go lower! I had H&R's on my GT and that stance was awesome! Might get eibachs later though as I don't want to go super low like the H&R's again.

Thanks for the suggestion!
 

Woody6799

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If you are dropped over an inch I would go fox shocks and struts. Its what I run on my Eibach pro kit and works great. Only difference is that the fox is an inch shorter so everything else is the same. All it does is keep the struts from over compressing bc you already lost an inch of travel bc you are lower.
 
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1997GT4.6

1997GT4.6

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If you are dropped over an inch I would go fox shocks and struts. Its what I run on my Eibach pro kit and works great. Only difference is that the fox is an inch shorter so everything else is the same. All it does is keep the struts from over compressing bc you already lost an inch of travel bc you are lower.

I'm actually dropped just about an inch exactly. I've heard about using the fox shocks/struts but have also seen that corner carvers vid that bullitt shared and it's not the best idea to go with the fox set up. Although for daily drivers that's just fine. Mines a DD but eh I went with the stuff made for my car. But yeah using the fox struts does exactly what you say. Probably rides better since it keeps them from over compressing.

But I already have a new pair of front struts. So on they go in about 2 weeks as soon as school is over :)

Also just bought 4.10 gears for the Cobra during the AM cyber monday sale! Those go on hopefully before Christmas!
 

robb15033

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I used Fox body struts/shocks. Now that the job is complete, I wonder if there are issues with the top of the strut hitting the hood when lowered 2++ inches(slammed). Looking at my struts now, it doesn't look like I have much more room before it hits the hood. Probably isn't an issue because I have never heard it mentioned but it pops into my mind every now and then.
LoweringSpringsInstall015-1.jpg
 

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