Changing the front struts on a SE

[Gary1958]

After buying some parts from Christopher Neils I now have two new complete front shock absorber assemblies to fit to my SE. The car still has the originals fitted and I expect their removal to be fun, not! In peoples experiances will the top nylocs undo or break off? I have sourced new nyloc nuts and socket head bolts for the yoke/shocks.

Is it worth keeping the old springs as they are 20 years old and rusty?

Any helpfull tips on fitment are welcome, I have a copy of the Lotus Manual to hand.

Gary

[Monty]

When i 1st did my suspension rebuild on Pinky1 the hardest ones were the nuts to the Top and Bottom ball joint as there difficult to get a ring spanner on them, i had to use a nut splitter in the end. The other problem area is the Bolts on the Top Ball Joint to upper wishbone, if they`ve never been off then i wouldn`t be suprised if the bolts are siezed in the Ball Joint, but you should be able to remove the shock without removing those bolts IIRC Saying that if i do any suspension work i prefer to undo the Top Ball joint from the upper wishbone and leave it attached to the Hub, that why you donet struggle with that nut and you don`t have to split the Ball joint and end up damaging the Rubber boot. If you do it that way you must remember how the adjustment shims/plates are positioned.

Hope that made sense

[Gary1958]

Update: help required

spent most of today using my Dremel on the Yoke socket bolts and nuts. Managed to remove them all but then couldn't remove the actual shock, despite leavering down the wishbones there's not enough clearance to remove the shock? What am i doing wrong? Do I need to remove the wheel arch liner?

[Monty]

If your struggling then just drop the lower wishbone, IIRC its only 2 bolts