Racing 4 Nickels: Time For Some New Struts

So last year as we pulled the car off the trailer Judge Phil and Judge Sam came by to see the car and after pushing down on the hood and watching it bounce, they told us to go to the parts store and replace them. We told them we had replaced them and that these were better then what was on the car when we got it.
We did agreed that they should eventually be replaced, but decided to run with what was on the car.

Well eventually is here;

Look how shiny they are.

So we thought this should be pretty straight forward, at least more so then fixing our fuel system issues.

Compress the spring, undue the bolt at the top, insert new strut, tighten bold, reinstall

So the spring is compressed enough to remove the top plate, after some effort we get the nut off the top and then fine this;

The seal with the ball barrings in it was broken, little balls all over the driveway.

So before we took the 2nd one apart, we thought we would see what the cost of a new part would be. If I remember correctly the whole top plate was about $55.

But wait we have 2 even worse complete struts in the shed.

So we decided to remove the other strut from the car and would then take apart the 2 in the shed if we needed parts.

So we un-compressed the first spring,

This would come to be an issue later, but we were unaware of that at the time.

So we worked on the other strut, took the top plate off

Barrings intact :)

Put it all back together and installed it on the car.

We then take apart one of the even worse struts, and the top plate and barring are intact, go to compress the fully uncompressed spring and run into issues.

Our spring compressor can not compress the spring enough for us to install it on the new strut.

We decide to see if any of the auto repair shops in the area were still open, it was about 4p. Our odds that a reputable shop would be open were slim.

So we put the parts in the trunk and take a drive, the first place we stopped said they did struts on the sign on the outside, but the guy told us he didn't do struts.

So we drove off to somewhere else we though we may find some help, and spotted a garage that was open with 4 guys just sitting in one of the bays talking.

We get some strange looks as we pull up, but this is the place we needed to be.

The one guy asked us if we had used a strut compressor before, and we said no.

None of the other guys sitting around had used it before, or just didn't want to help us.

So the first guy starting helping us until his "nephew" showed up with some bootleg movies, he then said if you do it your self its free.

Having see how the compressor worked we got the strut and the spring compressed, had to borrow some tools to get the nut on the top.

Thanked the guy and gave him $20 for the use of his shop as we walked out.

Got back to the car and installed it.