I'm having an *** of a time trying to get it torqued down. Just wondering what some of you guys did to keep the shaft from spinning?

 

I wrap a rubber strap around the shaft in between the coils of the spring. That keeps it from spinning. Same idea as those oil filter remover tools. Impact the top nut on. My shocks aren't fancy enough to care.

Doing it by hand requires special tools that probably only exist at the assembly factory back in the 80's.

 

split a piece of rubber hose and clamp it on the shock shaft with vice grips.put nut on.Zip with impact..done.

 

I've never had much luck with a rubber strap (strap wrench), I usually just zip with an electric impact at slightly higher torque then spec. In fact, I bought an electric impact specifically for this, and have been using it elsewhere as a bonus.

Although the rubber hose and vice grips idea sounds promising. I'd be concerned about the jaws of the vice grips cutting through the rubber and marring the shock shaft, which will quickly cause failure

 

If you grab it up high it doesnt matter what you do to it, the shaft doesnt go all the way in. Just get something on the shaft as high as you can and dont worry about scratches. I have never had an issue with them unless the threads on the end are jacked up though so maybe look into why its not tightening all the way down instead of how to tighten it more.

 

I already got it tightened but wanted to torque it to specs but I couldn't do that without the shafting spinning. I might try the vice grip idea or find someone with an impact, thanks.

 

Don't put the hose in a place that the shaft will compress into the body of the shock..As high as possible is key.
Also IF the Vice grips are THAT tight that it cuts through 3/8 hose,then your physical Grip that YOU used to squeeze those Vice grips to lock should have been sufficient!!!...Gorilla Hand!!!.
I have used this method when changing struts and springs.It works.

 

Eh, depends on the specific shocks. For stock, it would probably work well. For me, on one FC, I can only grab the lower 3 inches or so because of the spring coils, and on the other, the shaft can completely compress into the the body, except for the 4 mm below the nut (crazy custom race shocks).

 

I'm just using Tokico blues with RB springs so I don't think it should ever compress that low i hope?

 

Blues are pretty much stock replacements in my opinion, so they probably won't. You'll be keeping the stock bumpstops, or replacing them, right? Whatever the bumpstop "hides" at the top will be what doesn't ever enter the shock body

 

I replaced everything. Basically just gonna straight swap the struts. Ended up just using an impact so it's as tight as can be I guess.

 

i hit it with my impact gun, tap the trigger a few times and it's done.

easy peasy.

torque specs are important for some things, not all things.