The magic tool for the nut on top of the rear shock

[gibbons]

I replaced my rear shocks, which was a million times easier than the front struts. the only problem was what to use to take the nut off. The Volvo instructions from the resources section showed some magic tool that looks like a deep socket crow's foot. Heck, I don't have one of those. I was about to get out the welder and make one out of a couple of other sockets, when I had a thought.

I got one of my impact driver deep sockets, which tend to be a little softer so they dont' shatter. It was soft enough for my vice-grips to bite into. I took a 1/4" socket with an extension to hold the Torx, and assembled it through the big 1/2" drive socket. That piece between the wrench and the black socket is just a 3/8" to 1/4" adapter, it's just floating in the black socket. It worked perfectly! Sure, I had to guess on the torque, but having used it to crack the originals off, I had a pretty good idea how tight to go back on. I bet that Volvo tool is $500 to buy one :D

http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/2269/img3154large.jpg

[n00bkiller944]

Not a bad idea at all brother! I will have to keep this in mind when I do all of this!
could you possibly just rage the thing off with an impact gun?

[gibbons]

On the old ones I cracked the nut loose to see how tight it was. After that, I got out the SWAT impact gun and rattled it off with the shock shaft spinning about as fast as the nut! However, the threads are a little snug, and I didn't want to rattle the nut onto the new one as I don't know what it would do to the damping parts inside to have them spinning 300rpm as the nut gap slowly caught up. For that, I did it the old fashioned way with my collection of hand tools.

[RockitShip]

What size is that nut? Same as front strut?

[Ars Gladius]

As you are using the center torx for a counter hold when tightening the nut, put your torque wrench on that. As you tighten the nut with your special tool, the force applied to it will be equal the the force needed to hold the center torx in place. Easy peasy torque reading.

[gibbons]

Good one Ars, equal moments in a static freebody! That engineering class was too many years ago...

Rocket, the nut is whatever size a 6 sided SAE 3/4" socket fits comfortably over :p How embarrassing!

[Ars Gladius]

Don't feel bad, when I was doing the front struts I sat there for a bit thinking how the hell I was going to get the right torque on it since I didn't have a crow foot or a pass through socket.

[sly] :rolleyes: :cool: [thumbup]

[Jorge-789995]

what size is that nut? Same as front strut?

18mm