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245 Front shocks – do them in 1 hour
The two new shocks are in and work great. But what a hassle.
I tried the Bentley method and didn’t have the special wrench (Leslie 64000) to take the top nut off the shock and couldn’t get it at the local parts shop on rental basis and a two day wait for purchase at $55. So my local Volvo guru told me to just put the impact wrench on it. He said that is the way he does it all the time (for 23 years). So I did and presto it worked great! Next was the gland nut on the top of the strut tube. Of course I didn’t have the Volvo special tool (per Bentley) and could not knock it off with a big hammer and cold chisel. Again the Volvo guru recommended an air chisel. He said it worked every time for him. It wouldn’t work for me and gave me a sore wrist trying to hold the chisel on the gland nut slot. But what worked simply wonderful was a 24 inch pipe wrench!. (you need the 24 inch because the 16 inch pipe wrench will not open wide enough to span the gland nut) The gland nut came off with very little pressure from the wrench and no damage to the gland nut!
The trick here is to put the tie rod back on (as the strut is out from under the fender) so that the strut will not rotate when you put the pressure on the gland nut with the 24 inch pipe wrench. This is very easy if you unscrew the tie rod and do not disconnect the tie rod end. Just unscrew the tie rod, being careful to mark the tie rod so that you can put it back at the correct place to preserve alignment.
In the general case the Bentley procedure is OK, except by using the impact wrench and the 24 inch pipe wrench it just makes this shock change “child’s play”. It is easy to do one in one hour.
Bob
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Bob Bixby Ok
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