Hey guys my shocks seem to be gone really bad in the font end and my whole car feels more like a boat, is this expensive or hard to do?
first off you have mcphearson struts in the front and chapmans in the back. if your car feels like a boat i wouldnt assume struts. if you struts were gone you car would only have the coil as your suspension, so no strut to dampen the affects of rebound. so your car would bounce like a cheap porno. do this; bounce your car, give it 3 good pushes on the hood then let go, if it keeps bouncing, your struts are fucked. if not guess what? your in the clear. if they are fucked get a spring compressor, and keep your springs and get a set of aftermarkets, or oem whichever is cheaper. heres its anout $$150.00 / wheel, so i dont know about where you are, and dont use junkyard struts. if your 20 yr old ones are fucked, think of how other 20 year old ones are.
The struts aren't hard to do if you have access to spring compressors and feel comfortable doing this. Key to this is to tighten each spring compressor little by little on opposite sides of the springs as to not over tighten and fire the whole assembly through a wall, door, your head, etc... If you are not comfortable with this what you can do to save yourself some loot is to remove the whole strut assembly from both the front and rear of the car and take them to a shop with the new shocks. Have them compress the coil and replace the shocks in the car. Then simply go home and re-install. Only catch to this way is having the space to do this/access to jack stands to put your car up on while you run out. This can be done on your own in a couple hours if you are new to it. If you know your way around it, you can do it in much less time. Remember, you need a 14mm and 17mm Ratchet and Wrench to remove the suspension. Along with a good set of spring compressors. You should be able to rent these at just about any autoparts store. KYB's seem to be the strut of choice. I know Mafix ran these on his first car prior to doing the rear strut mod. He seemed to like them alot. These are MacPhearson struts all the way around. Not quite sure what Celica_GT2 is talking about. He's got me kinda confused here.
MacPhearson and Chapman struts are essentially the same suspension design. The only difference is that it is called a Macphearson strut if it is on the steerable wheels with lower A arms, and chapman strut on the non steerable wheels with multiple links. Not really sure why they bothered to name them differently, but whatever. KYB GR-2s are excellent shocks for the money. I only got to use them for a short time on my blue Celica but they were very nice, sporty but still comfortable.
a chapman strut is a varible rate coil (thats why its smaller at the top). as the front one have a set spring rate. turning doesnt matter because the strut has nothing to do with turning. thats the sole job of the knuckle and tie rod ends. like for example, and awd rear steer car, would have chapmans in the back. their there becuse the back will go under more load than the front. ie: people, cargo ect..... the spring loads are the same, but the spring rates are different.
actually, im sorry, that was one of the differences between the two, but i looked it up this morning. and it is both the rates and the steering or muli-link setup. i must have been thinking of something else..llol oops
