kondratus

hello fellow CL Members, i recently finished changing front struts on my GS300 98 with 152000 miles on it, pretty much stock, and Decided to pay back to my favorite forum.

Special Thanks to jonathancl as i have used his guide for My DIY (GS430 L-Tuned Suspension Install
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sus...n-install.html).

Sorry for my lousy English, but here it goes.

Got my shocks from sewellparts.com (thanks to CL for discount), Brand New KYB Toyota OEM :-).
One thing to mansion is that i got aftermarket dust boot with bumper on rockauto, great quality, but if i would do it again, id go with oem, ill show you why later.



TOOLS:
Rented spring compressor From Auto-Zone.
Rented ball joint separator , same place, (Fork looking like)
Torque Wrench
½” Breaker Bar
½” Ratchet Ranch
10mm, 12mm, 17mm, 20mm, i think 19mm sockets
14mm Deep socket for strut tower nuts
PB bluster or equivalent


it took me about 8 hours,( had to do one side a day) as i had no experience what so ever, and lots of patients.

1. Put my car on emergency brake. Loosen wheel bolts. Used 2 ton hydraulic jack to jack my car up, lifted high enough to put the front on jack stands, as pictured below. once up in the air and secure take the wheels off.

kondratus

2. Remove 10mm bolts holding abs speed sensor to the body and the strut, tack it away, but be real gentle, if you damage it , 200$ right there, mine got damaged when my lower ball joint failed on me, and wheel came off, so be careful.

3. Detach upper suspension arm from steering knuckle

Remove cotter pin, remove 17mm nut. I used different tool then jonathancl, its a fork looking thing, with two teeth's, you hammer it in between the upper control arm and steering knuckle, till it pops, as always be careful . after i got the two separated i tied with the wire steering knuckle to apper control arm so it doesnt hangs to loose to avoid tension on brake line.
4. Detach stabilizer bar from stabilizer bar link.

Remove two 12 mm bolt and nut from stabilizer bar then you can move it downwards out the way.( i was replacing my links as well, but its a different story,) One thing to mansion is when i was putting everything together, i tried to torque the bolts to specks 41 ft lbs, i ended up breaking the bolt, so its a good idea to buy new ones, before u attempt.

Acer

iTrader: (3)

where's the rest?

kondratus

5. Remove the front shock absorber
i was able to loosen the lower 17 or 19 mm NUT (cant recall correctly, either both 17mm or one 17 and one 19mm) facing rear using only socket and ½ “ wrench, even thou i had to give it quite a force. but no problem, after u loosen it just remove the nut and lightly tap the bolt with the hammer or something, remove it.


Then In the engine bay Loosen the piston rod lock nut in the engine bay. DO NOT REMOVE IT; Remove the three strut tower nuts (14mm deep socket) Remove the strut.



6. disassembling is were the fun began for me.
compressing spring was PITA. took me about 30 minutes to compress it to the point where i was safe to remove the piston rod nut.
after i disassemble it here is comparison of an old vs new strut.

old rubber boot has the spring bumper against strut tower assembly. the new one don't, i had to cut the old rubber one to use in conjunction with new one, plus new bumper according to instructions the wider end of it goes on the bottom, while the old one wider side looks up( confusing), so recommend going OEM all the way, bit more expensive but all fits.

850Lexus

I would of just reused the old dust cover rather than the new aftermarket one. I did this 3 weeks ago and I had order new dust covers and the paper gasket that goes on top of the strut mount due to the noise( sounded like metal on metal contact when I hit a bump. Turned out struts were just blown). I went with KYB GB2 struts and NF210 drop springs. I did forget to buy the bump stops so had to go with KYB. I had issues getting the strut assembly back in because I had to compress the spring so I could get the bottom bolt back in and that took a lot of effort. I didn't have this problem the first time I replace my stock springs with drop springs. Did you run into something similar?

The first side took me almost 7 hours but got the other side done in less than 2.

Nice write up!!

kondratus

when i was trying to assemble new one, i found that compression was not enough to fit the piston rod through the tower assy. so i compressed the spring all the way i could and then i was able to put the nut on the rod.
now as jonathancl said, its a tricky part
i put the assembly back with the compressor on , tightened one nut so it looks like this

in order to align holes for bracket and strut, i used big screwdriver or something that would fit in the hole of the strut and turned it, bad thing about my approach is that i was unable to twist the spring with the strut( i could not compress this ******* any more )so the spring was off the mark on the strut little bit, ideally if compressed a bit more strut should twist with the spring to align perfectly..
but its not a big deal ,I hope.

once aligned take the strut out again, loose the springs back, take off compressor, install the Strut assy.

Torques:
Lower shock bolt: 116 ftlbs
Upper suspension arm bolt: 64 ftlbs
Strut tower nuts: 41 ftlbs
Piston rod lock nut: 20 ftlbs
Stabilizer bar nut and bolt: 41 ftlbs

Special thanks again to jonathancl CL member for his nice write up,

kondratus

Yeah man, i took my time, as i said , should've ordered new OEM boot or even reused the old one, it was perfectly fine, may be gasket, mine was fine as well.
aligning is aly possible when you compress the spring enough so it almost freely rotates, i couldn't do that myself.

lexybaby77

Thanks for this great write up. I'm planning to do this real soon!!!!

runyun

iTrader: (11)

In order to skip this step, before disassembling the original setup - mark the tophat (with whiteout or something) with the orignial shock assembly. So when you replace - you can realign and not have to install/remove/reinstall each one for alignment.

NEbiker10

iTrader: (1)

NICE!!!!!! Thanks for doing this for us!!

Im assuming this is the same for the 400?

abounly

iTrader: (27)

Same for all 2GS you didn't need to remove the UCA? All you needed to do was remove the sway and the shock bolt. And have someone else step on the rotor to give enough clearance to get the shock out. That's how I would do it.

Anyways nice job pictures are always welcoming.

bonson

wow 7 hours. would've taken me 8!
Well I have a mechnanic with 10 yrs experience who just installed my 2 new front KYB struts for $25 each side at their shop + another $160 to install the new (reman) steering rack n pinion and new tie rods...
i was not comfortable to do either myself. They sent me to an alignment shop so add $25.

ThomasGS4

iTrader: (19)

Those numbers seem extremely low. Where do you take your car?!