stuart browne

Yes the front strut comes out as a unit only 3 bolts at top and 1 at bottom. The back if and i mean if you can find an old or very small strut compressor you can compress the spring. This saves you from taking the half shafts out,and they are a B to take off. I was present when a mechanic took of a pair of stuts out off a 90 LS400 with a Monroe spring compressor.The first shock was a breeze, in fact the spring was so weak you could collapse it with two hands. Now the other side his hook slipped of the spring as he was pulling it off the top plate. It went right throught the gas tank and a hole was in the trunk floor. If it had hit him in the head it would have killed him, the guy shook for over an hour.

FusionMan79

Mlevk, both the fronts and the rears come out as a single unit. They both have a mounting plate and are both macpherson struts (unless you have air suspension in which case you've got a pneumatic cylinder). You don't have to compress the rear struts to get them out but if you do it MIGHT save the trouble of taking the half shaft out. You won't be able to use any kind of hydraulic or automated spring compressor, you have to use the manual one that hooks on and uses a wrench to tighten. A good resource I found was the Alldatadiy website It's $25 for one car for a year. There are illustrations and step by step instructions on how to do a lot of repair jobs. It looks like it's straight from the repair manual but it doesn't cost $185.

mlevk

Thanks for the update.
But it sounded like you compressed yours prior
to removing the strut assy. from the car.
I have a 91 w/o air susp. , so I should be able
to undo the top 3 nuts and botton one and slide
it out w/o removing the half-shafts ? Right?
Then compress it with the spring compressor, remove the
strut and plate. Reverse to install.

By the way Stewart , I finally got the lower ball joint parts from Irontoad for
$86 ea. , Cartparts.com is out of business , looks ilke the merged with
JC Whitney, but DON'T offer any replacement parts. You may have gotten the last
order in !!! The other site you recommend had it listed, but after a few days after I
ordered them, I had to call them , no they didn't have them and would NOT be
able toi get them anymore ?
I
They showed up at my home in Toyota bag and box ? But the fit
perfectly. I tried to remove the ball joint with a "pickle fork", bent the damn thing.
Rented the balljoint/tierod removal tool , what snap with the right tool.

FusionMan79

Actually I wasn't able to get the struts out without removing the half shafts. I tried but the spring got caught up inside the body.
The upper portion of the spring area is very tight. If you were able to compress the spring while it was still on the car though I think you'd be able to get it out. Actually I think that the small amount of clearance might be causing my springs to rub. The Eibachs are slightly larger than the OEMs. Loule if you read this could you tell me if your springs were rubbing or making noise after you installed them?