Hi all,

I'm officially hating my 85 240 DL wagon right now. I just bought the car two weeks ago, and last sunday the right front spring seat gave out on me - rusted through, which as I find out is a common problem on older 240's.

So I've got new spring seat repair kits on order from the dealer. I thought I'd add that I think this who situation is ridiculous - every other car I've worked on that has MacPherson struts, when you buy struts, they have the spring seats integrated into them and the struts bolt to the hub/steering knuckle assembly. But no, volvo has the stupid strut inserts in the front and the lower spring seat that is not meant to be replaced.

What's really irritating me is that you cannot remove the front strut lower tube assembly without disconnecting the brake lines - something I wanted to avoid. I cannot believe that the brake lines are not just clipped to the strut(like every other car...)- they're actually fixed inside of them! (on the piece of metal that's welded to the strut) What a pain in the butt! Is there an easier way to remove this damned strut tube assembly without disconnecting the brake lines? I do'nt see a way around it - Chiltons says nothing about disconnecting brake lines for replacing the "stub axle" assembly.
--
85 240 DL wagon - 91 Mazda MX6 Turbo