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My son and I did the shocks and struts all around. We bought an inexpensive ($48.95) "universal strut nut remover" which has a socket to hold the center shaft and a larger socket to fit the large nut. It really works fine. We couldn't figure out a way to hold the center shaft and still get a wrench on the large nut otherwise.
We used a spring compressor tool (be very carefull) to compress the spring and allow us to remove the top nut on the strut and swing it down and out from the top of the fender opening. You need to have the brake line loose (not disconnected) and provide support for the control arm. The spring lifts off with the compressor tool attached. We were able to loosen and remove the large nut holding the strut cartridge in the strut with a pipe wrench. Ours wasn't all that tight and the strut body didn't turn. Put in the new cartridge and tighten with the same wrench.
The hard part was getting the spring back into the strut tower. The compressor (a two part tool) left too little room to get the strut lined up with its hole in the upper mounting. We finally removed the three nuts holding the upper mounting to the strut tower ( mark the position so you can get back the same way for alignment) and put the upper mount onto the strut leaving the large nut untightened. We could then remove the compressor tool and swing the strut assembly back under the fender and line up the three bolts on top with their holes. We lined the top with the marks we made, tightened the top nut on the strut, replaced the bracket for the brake line and put the wheel back on.
The first side took two of us about 2 1/2 hours. Once we saw how to get the strut back in, we did the second side in 1/2 hour. In general, we followed the Bentley manual but it doesn't always tell you how to do something, just to do it. A second helper was really great to have.
The rear shocks are a pretty simple job after doing the struts.
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