Yeah, the front of my GSL-SE has been clunking around since I bought it and I just figured it out. Today I noticed the cartridge nuts on both sides are fucked up. They are not threaded in and WILL NOT thread into the cartridge. Super. Is this a common problem? I hope I don't have to replace more crap now if those cartridges are messed up at the top. I have some new shocks for the front so I'm pulling it apart tomorrow.

This was more of a rant.

 

it happened on my car (mazda protege5) although for different reasons.

my friend and I were putting my suspension parts on Tokico blues and eibach springs. Well the spring didnt seat correctly, so we had to recompress them, and remove the nut to take the spring perch off. I hand him the wrench because he had a better angle with the way i was holding the strut, and he proceeded to turn the wrench...the wrong way. the nut had tightened down a washer that had turned and stripped the threads. and it was stuck. we got the spring to seat right, but it wasnt held down properly.

The way i fixed it was to grab the washer with vice grips (the washer had a flat side on the inner that pervented teh cartridge from turning. and removed the nut. Got a bunch of washers to cover up the stripped threads and then reassembled.

Not sure if this helps, probably wont, but if you can find some way to hold the strut to keep it from turning so you can remove the nut it could work...

 

Well I guess I'll find out tomorrow, I just hope its not FUBR. I'm trying to get everything on this car done before July so I can hit a few car shows with it but the progress is so slow going, haha.