[Montagge]

How do you torque down the retaining nut on the top of the front struts for 2nd Gen Frontiers without the upper half of the shock spinning?

I tightened it down with a couple of wrenches until it felt tight, but I'm horrible at guessing such things so I'd like to actually torque it down before I drive on it much more

 

[HueyDude]

How do you torque down the retaining nut on the top of the front struts for 2nd Gen Frontiers without the upper half of the shock spinning?

I tightened it down with a couple of wrenches until it felt tight, but I'm horrible at guessing such things so I'd like to actually torque it down before I drive on it much more

There are flats on the upper stud portion that you can place an adjustable wrench on. This should hold it in place while you tighten down the nut. Go to the first sticky in the Suspension threads under Mods and technical discussions forum. Even if your shocks aren't Holstein's, it will give you an idea.

 

[Montagge]

There are flats on the upper stud portion that you can place an adjustable wrench on. This should hold it in place while you tighten down the nut. Go to the first sticky in the Suspension threads under Mods and technical discussions forum. Even if your shocks aren't Holstein's, it will give you an idea.

That's what I did to tighten it down, but I can't use a torque wrench and socket that way to confirm that it is at the correct torque

 

[HueyDude]

If you don't have a socket that's deep enough, try a crow's foot. Your torque wrench instructions should have a formula for recalculating torque due to extra length.

 

[Montagge]

If you don't have a socket that's deep enough, try a crow's foot. Your torque wrench instructions should have a formula for recalculating torque due to extra length.

I have a deep socket but the whole thing rotates instead of just the nut, I can't have a wrench on the flat and a socket on the nut at the same time.

I'll see if I can find an 18mm crow's foot

 

[IAm_Not_Lost]

The big thing to remember is just not to try and hold the strut shaft with pliers or vice grips or something and mar it all to heck. I just installed Bilstein 5100's and did the whole coil spring swap and assembly myself and ended up just using an impact driver to snug the top nut up (I know the impact driver isn't optimal at all). I didn't have any shaft movement doing it that way as long as I held onto the flat washer on top with vice grips to keep the whole mount assembly from spinning. I snugged it up to the exact thread count that the previous strut was at and it fit perfectly and hasn't loosened or given me any issue in about 2k miles now of use.