[teamwieland]

I just followed some of the great DIYs for front strut replacement but clearly I did something wrong. I am getting a knocking sound from the top strut mount locations on both sides. The knocking occurs when going slowly over bumps. Reassembling the strut seemed pretty straight forward and I used new bearings along with the Bilstein B4 shocks. Is there a trick to reassembling these things? The reassembled struts felt nice and solid prior to being installed so I am unsure what I could have jacked up.

[teamwieland]

Disregard! After reading a few more posts I realized the top nut wasn't completely bottomed out. I was able to move the strut brace over far enough to hit the top nut with the air gun and got another turn or so. Hard to believe it can make that much noise with that little play.

[bsmoov]

Originally Posted by teamwieland

Disregard! After reading a few more posts I realized the top nut wasn't completely bottomed out. I was able to move the strut brace over far enough to hit the top nut with the air gun and got another turn or so. Hard to believe it can make that much noise with that little play.

teamwieland how did you tighten that top nut initially? When you retightened with the air gun, did it automatically stop at the end? I'm afraid it might rip off the threads or go past the threads.

I suspect I might need to retighten mine, but I'm kind of reluctant to use my milwaukee cordless impact.

[blueloco]

Use a socket you don't mind marring a little and clamp hard in vise grips. Use a hex key stuck through the socket to hold the strut shaft and then tighten the nut using vise grips as a bmw special tool,

[drawz]

Bavauto has a nice youtube video where they use a spark plug socket and hex key for tightening the top nut.

[bsmoov]

The real question is:

With using a impact gun, would it stop automatically/resistance at the end of the thread?

Or will it keep going and rip through the threads?

Anyone tried or have any experiences?