I am planning on replacing the two front struts this week with KYB struts on my 98 Lexus ES300. I have all the parts together (SR4031 - Front Right; SR4032 - Front Left assemblies, OEM mounts, and bearings). Does anyone know if I need to fully compress the spring in order to remove the KYB mount or does anyone have advice on how they swapped out the KYB mounts with the OEM mounts?

 

I got the same KYB Strut Plus assemblies on all for corners of my '98 3ES and like them just fine after about 8 months and 50K miles. Personally, I would return the OEM parts but if you're determined you can return the quick struts and just buy their Excel-G struts by themselves and break out the spring compressors :-). I seem to recall that @Hayk did a DIY write-up of his installation of aftermarket struts with OEM mounts but I can't locate the thread after a brief search.

 

Why do you want to put the OEM mounts into the KYB assemblies? That negates the reason you buy a complete assembly in the first place if you want the OE mounts, buy bare KYB struts and assemble them using the parts from your car and of course replace any rubber bits that have gone bad.

BTW the KYB mount may be different than the OEM mount not sure. To answer your question the strut has to be completely disassembled to replace the mount.

 

If you end up assembling the struts with Lexus mounts, I highly recommend you get this type of spring compressor. It’s the best on the market.

 

I want that.