For anyone who is now experiencing this issue, and you are going to fix it yourself......pay attention.

First, let's consider that you've never done it before. Are you going to buy a spring compressor, or rent one? Your first time. Do it wrong, and you can get hurt really bad.

We will assume that you are mechanically competent. You take the strut apart. Do you really want to assemble a new coil spring with a 10 or 15 year old shock absorber? Think about that for a second. You can save yourself the step of taking apart the strut. Throw it away.

Most of us are do-it-yourself types. I get that. That's why you are reading a forum, and trying to figure it out. As opposed to just paying a shop to install it.

If you are insistent on assembling a new coil spring onto a shock absorber, use all new parts. Buy a new shock absorber. Get some new hardware. But why even bother?

Best option would be to replace with a new strut assembly. Not assembly your own with a coil spring compressor.



Some of you are avid DIY'er, will never pay a shop to do anything, and enjoy scouring junkyards. If you think that replacing a broken strut, with old worn parts off another truck in a junkyard, is better than installing a new part......there's no convincing you. Nobody can point out that you are pulling a 10 year old worn strut off of another car, and that one will be just as likely to break after you install it. Nobody can shed light on how it's just as much effort, blood, seat, and tears, to install a new strut. Nobody will convince you that it's safer to use new parts. One of the lessons I learned in life from my dad, as I watched him install 4 junkyard radiators on the same car, was that it would have been cheaper to install a new radiator once.