I have tried everything i can think of to loosen the top nut of my (front) struts. it's the one that's set down into that pointless little well and holds the rod comming out of the stut cartridge (which, of course, is free to rotate) down with the top of that bearing thing and keeps the coil spring in compression.

you know the one.

how the hell do you get that thing loose? i have tried:

1. using a deep 24mm socket: of course the whole thing just builds up resistance and then pops and spins, but never comes loose. obvious problem with this is that you cannot counter hold the strut rod. i have tried doing this with the car on jackstands (which was dumb), so then i put the suspension back together, lowered the car, and tried it again with weight on everything, same stupid result.

2. buying a rediculously expensive 15/16" offset wrench from Sears, after i couldn't find an offset wrench of any kind at pep-boys or home depot. Sears did not have 24mm, their metric only went up to 23mm. how perfect for me. and they only had the mirror-finish "professional" $25 type. took it home, and it didn't even work anyway. the offset wasn't angled enough/the stem was too fat. it didn't fit into the well. so that attempt didn't work at all.

3. making my own tool. i bought a cheap 24mm regular box-end wrench on clearance at the hardware store. i took it to a machine shop (as in, for the mechanical engineering department of my university, not a garage), heated it up with a torch, and put two 90-degree bends in it so it would fit down into the well. i did it wrong (the bend was too far back from the box end) and then had a friend cut out part of it and weld it back together. took it home and it still was too fat to fit into that little well. so i spent about 2 hours with a dremel tool shaving it down to fit into that well. when i tried it, it still didn't fit quite right, but it didn't matter anyway, because, of course, it just broke at the weld like i thought it would. then i had to spend 20 minutes fishing out the broken box end stuck down on the nut in the well.

i feel so defeated. i hate that nut so much right now. what do i do?

i know volvo makes a special tool for this, but the guys at the service office at the nearest volvo dealer didn't seem to have one. they said, "oh, you just need an air wrench" (thanks guys). i don't see how having an air wrench solves anything, it seems like it would have the same result as what i tried first, wouldn't it? in case you can't tell, i just came in from working on the car and im really annoyed right now; so please forgive my sarcastic tone. thanks for reading all of this ranting/plea for help.

colbi

'86 245 in Pittsburgh, PA