I have an 86 with 110000 miles on it. The shocks are blown and the strut mounts are bad. I went with kyb agx shocks and tanabe gf210 springs. I'm buying the new strut mounts and dust boot/bump stops today. So my questions is:
Is there anything else I need to buy so that I can assemble the new units without having to take apart the old units? Maybe some obscure part that I might not know about, but happens to be super important??? I want to have the new ones ready to swap in once I lift the car

The overall goal here to avoid having to disassemble the old shocks. The end.

Thanks guys!!!

PS Feels good to be back

 

You should be good to go, no "super secret" parts to be missed.

Make your life easier and go out right now and douche the mounting bolts (especially the front lower mount bolts) with PB Blaster (or the equivalent) and maybe do it again the day before you plan on working. Those things can freeze up quite stubbornly.

 

I have 2 mounts sitting here, I had about 1000 miles or so on them before swapping them out for RB mounts if you had any interest in them

 

have you done struts before? My only input would be a spring compressor/holder.

I realized though, you have new spring and most likely will be scrapping the old without even having to Remove the old spring from the old strut.

carry on good sir.

 

If you have everything pictured here, you are good to go.

 

white towel and dirty show is a must

 

I wouldn't want to mess up my pristine garage floor.

 

dust boot, bump stop(part of the front strut dust boot but not the rear), spring hat, spring hat cushion and the strut top mount are all that you should need if building 100% new.

 

Okay so from that picture it looks like I don't have the upper and lower spring seats. And I don't think that comes with the strut mounts I ordered (O'Reilly's house brand and they should be here soon). Also, it doesn't seem like anyone sells those separately.

 

the lower spring seat is built into the strut itself(there is no lower rubber isolator there either).

the upper spring seat you could get used for a few bucks from someone, it may be no longer available new since even mazdatrix doesn't list the front upper spring seat, just the rubber isolator.



just ran into this issue last week, with one of those super shitty ebay coilover kits that eliminates the upper spring seats and they probably get tossed in the garbage... unkowing that those coilover sets are junk and they will probably need those parts again eventually. didn't help that someone chopped the springs down, which destroyed the whole kits as the springs spun and ate away at everything versus simply dropping down the lower collar height.

 

So lower spring seat refers to the part of the strut where the spring sits?

The two pieces I'm missing from that picture are the two between the strut mount and the dust boot. I thought those were called the spring seat and spring upper seat. Or spring hat and hat cushion? sorry for making this confusing.

 

yes, the lower is part of the struts, disregard it completely because it's there on all the struts.

the upper hat/spring seat is the same part i was mentioning. the 2nd+3rd from the top in the picture in the thread, which i can only assume is no longer available new anywhere but you can try your mazda dealer and hopefully they aren't expensive and still available.

 

Thanks!

 

Both parts were still available from Mazda when I did my front suspension. That was approximately two years ago.

 

Awesome thanks yall. One last thing. Can anyone show me a photo of how just the strut mount is supposed to sit on the upper spring seat? I have the shop manual and know how its supposed to go on, but it would make me feel better if I can see real picture.

 

my strut mounts just kinda sits on top of the spring hat. Doesnt seem likes its a perfect fit. are these supposed to press together once assembled?

 

since your tires are off and the car is on sands you might want to inspect the control arm bushing and ball joints also.speaking since its all in the same general area and fairly eas to replace.

 

If anyone is curious, the rubber spring pad (FB01-34-012) and the spring hat/mount (FB01-34-341) is still available from Mazda, ordered some yesterday. Pad is like $15 and the hat is like $23.

 

Alright, last questions and I'll leave this thread alone.
At Least until it warms up. Then I'll be posting before and after pictures

So from what I've read, I've gathered that I will need rear camber adjusters for the 1.5 drop. Is this correct?
And that I don't need front camber plates?

Thanks again.