I was feeling a bit lazy today (raining out side) but couldnt let a Saturday go by without doing at least one thing for the car. I had my $7 ebay front strut tower brace sitting in the garage for at least a month so I figured I'd go ahead and put that in. 15 minutes and then I could lay around the rest of the day guilt-free.

First thing to go wrong - two bolts (out of 6) on the koni's are stripped -both on the drivers side. So I decide to pull one of the non stripped ones off and head up to Lowe's to get 6 new ones to replace them all. Trouble is that koni decided to make the bolt head an allen wrench. 20 minutes later I have one off. At lowes I screw the bolt into their bolt sizing display and it fits perfectly into the 10mmx1.5 size so I get all the bolts I need and head to sears to get a allen head socket to take the rest of the bolts out. I spend about 20 minutes looking for a 5.5mm allen socket but no luck. I find a 7/32" (I think) one that feels pretty good so I decide to get that one.

Back at the house - try to put the 10mm into the koni but no luck. wtf? I try to put one of the nuts on the 10mm bolt and it only goes a couple of threads. I am think what the heck is going on then it comes to me. The konis are not metric! Crap! So back to lowes I go. Return the metric bolts and find the right size non-metric bolts.

Back to the house again and the passenger side is done - the socket was a good call. Now for the hard part get the stripped bolts off. I figure I would just start taking the bolt out from the bottom and that would put upward pressure on the nut and hopefully it would catch and it does for both nuts! All downhill from here! NOT one of the allen heads strips! I cut the 2 bolts off so the stripped parts dont screw up threads on koni's. I get one of the bolts out, and start working on the stripped one. I stick a different sized allen wrench in and get a few more turns before it is completely stripped. Then I take a dremmel and cut 2 sides of the round head off to give me 2 flat surfaces to put a vice grip plyers on to it. After a long and frustrating time it is finally out. One to go. I manage to get it out without striping it! All bolts go back in and I put the bar on in 2 minutes. Fit is great and it feels solid - looks good.

What a day...I think I am going to drink a couple beers...

Shawn

 

Nice story. Very entertaining, and worth reading. I think you will feel a significant difference when pushing the car in a corner. Wait until the roads are dry to try it

 

man, i know how you feel, i had some bs apc front tower brace for my talon that i had and 3 bolts out of 6 were stripped.. my dad was like, damn you suck if you cant undo 6 bolts and put them back in.. lol

took me an hour though

 

With allen bolts, I find that if you put the allen wrench in first then take a set of vice grips and tighten them down around the allen head bolt that they don't strip anymore. My OS Giken clutch has all 10mm allen head bolts...never once stripped yet because I do this trick.

 

Why didnt you just slot the head with your dremel and use a flathead screwdriver?

 

Good story.
When you drive it, try to see if you feel a difference.

 

I dont think I could have gotten enough torque with a screw driver - those bolts were tough. But if my vice grips plan failed that was next.

I dont think I understand. Put the allen wrench into the bolt then vice grip the allen wrench? I was taking a long socket with a 6 inch extention to lever over the end to get the bolt to move. The bolts were ridiculously difficult to move. I put grade 8 eveything back so I hope I wont ever have the same (exact) problem again.

Shawn

 

Place the vice grips around the allen bolt HEAD and tighten down the vice grips. This prevents the allen wrench from spinning inside the allen bolt head and stripping it.

 

Allen bolts and torx heads (stars) were created by the devil himself. I always replace them with regular bolts unless they are absolutely neccesary which is very rare.

 

 

DP.

 

man that sucks, glad it worked out in the end