JasonK94Z

I'm about to swap out shocks and springs this weekend. The back is simple, but searching around and reading about the fronts got me a little scared about nut on the top of the shock thats possibly rusted. If I have to cut the old nut off, will the new shocks have this nut with it? And what about the spacer underneath the nut? I'm not sure I understand.

Also, how should I go about lining up/marking the top mount with the bottom mount of a new shock and springs?

Thanks. Just trying to prepare myself so I don't get stuck with something like a rusted/siezed nut, and a problem aligning the mounts. Everything else looks pretty straight forward.

shoebox

Your new shock should have a fastener package with the nuts and such. You won't know about the condition of anything else until you get it out. If you live where they don't salt the roads much in the winter, that will probably be a plus.

Mark a line from the top mount to the bottom mount so they can be put back in the same orientation. If the mounts are twisted from their original positions, you won't be able to get the unit back on. The tension of the spring keeps you from being able to easily reposition them.

Lower

Personally, if I were to do this again on an 11 year old assembly, I would buy the upper shock mounts and have them on hand.
Maybe buy them from somewhere that will accept a return if you don't need them, or just replace them knowing that they're 11 years old.

I worked for a good long time to get my assemblies out and apart, only to realise that the upper shock mount had bonded to the shaft of the shock, and would therefore not be reuseable.

This seems to be a common occurance for 10+ year old shocks on these cars.

JasonK94Z

Ok, I understand what needs to be done then. If I have to buy new upper mounts, then how does someone align everything again?

Lower

I wondered the same thing.
But then I got it apart and wondered how someone could put it back together without having it aligned.

It's kind of hard to explain, but the upper shock mount and lower shock seat are grooved to hold the spring.

I just lined it up so that the ends of the coil spring on both ends were "home" in their respective grooves. Seemed pretty simple to me.

OBE1 95Z28

Shock alignment is more than getting the ends of the springs coils lined up, it's aligning the top and bottom mounts so that the assembly will bolt back ino the suspension. The bottom shock mounts needs to be parallel to the side of the car, the upper mount must align to the 4 mounting holes in the inner fender. Some aftermarket shocks (i.e. Hal) allow you to line up the mounts after reassembly, others (Bilsteins) don't allow you to align.

Injuneer

I'd second the opinion that you start out with new upper spring seats in-hand. The rubber dry rots and metal rusts, making it difficult to separate without damage, and sometimes its already past salvage, just from old age.

These are all the components of the stock shock:

http://members.aol.com/InjuneerZZ/im...otos/shk08.jpg

Simply lining up the "groves" for the spring sounds good, but it doesn't work. The lower mount is a rubber ring in a metal tray. The rubber ring can move and throw of the whole setup. The explanation with regard to lining up the top mount studs/bolts and the lower shock mounting bracket holes is 100% correct. Marking the position of the lower seat rubber ring, relative to the metal seat would help.

NBred94

A bit of advice that I heard and followed was once you get everything back together, be sure to put a giant glob of grase on the shock retaining nut so the new one won't rust out like the old one almost certainly has. You never know, you might be the poor bastard that has to take the thing apart again