I was cleaning up some dust from the engine bay after work yesterday just trying to keep everything nice and clean when I noticed one of my top Strut Mount nuts seemed a little loose.

So me, apparently being dumb, thought to myself "Oh I'll just look up the torque specs in JTIS and get the old Torque wrench out and tighten them up to spec." Well, long story short I somehow managed to snap one of the bolts off and proceeded to freak out and want to fall in a hole and hide.

So now my question is, Has this happened to anyone else and does anyone know if there's a way for me to replace this myself in my garage or am I totally screwed and need a new shock? If it is repairable, will I need to pull the entire shock out and disassemble everything?

I'm saying a prayer that it will end up not being a huge deal and maybe I can tap out the old one and just get a new bolt, but the complexity of our Jags and our crazy suspension is keeping me from being too optimistic. If I do infact have to replace the shock I'm pretty SOL because I don't and won't have the money for that for a long long time.

I know it's not ideal to drive like this, but I don't have a choice. She's my only vehicle and I work 6 days a week. Thank you anyone and everyone for looking at this and I hope your day goes better than mine did!

 

ok, don't freak out. it's not the end of the world! There are what, 4 bolts on the top mounts? (I haven't looked lately but what is typical). That's what I'm assuming you snapped?
3 will hold it together. others may not this, but I think it will be fine to drive EASY if you HAVE to, for work.
You just don't want to put a ton of turning/weight on it by turning fast or going around corners fast etc. You don't want to overload that corner and break another bolt or have the whole thing come loose.

You'll probably need to then take it apart and see what can be done. Take it to a local machine shop or your trusted local mechanic and see what he can sort out, if you feel it's over your head.


You will survive and so will the Jag!

*I just had a VW that was making a groaning in the suspension that I couldn't figure out for months; it had almost all new parts in that corner. Turned out the last mechanic's helper kid had not used a torque wrench and had snapped one of the 3 mount bolts for the lower ball joint; was afraid to tell anyone I'm guessing and then denied having done it.

 

Thank you Rosskuhns, I tend to freak out when things happen to my car; It's bad enough when things break, but it's so much worse when you break them yourself.

You're correct, there are 4 bolts on the top and only 1 broke off, it just concerns me since my commute every day is pure highway and not always super smooth here in Illinois.

I'm going to try and get the shock pulled out this weekend and see what I can do, I haven't had a chance to look at it in person very well but from the pictures I can find it doesn't look like the top portion of the shock comes off so I could press it out like I've seen on other non-air ride set ups.

I'll hope for the best and see what happens; If anyone else has suggestions or experience with this situation please feel free to chime in as well. Thank you again.

 

Hi Revonok,

I agree with rosskuhns that there's no call for panic.

I don't know how much experience you have with drilling and tapping holes in metal, but if it were my car, before I went to the trouble of removing the air spring/shock assembly, I might try this:

Select a common bolt size a little smaller than the original stud that snapped off. You will need a tap and the appropriate size drill bit for the size bolt you select. It doesn't matter if you choose a metric or SAE/Imperial size, as long as it's a little smaller than the original stud, but not so small that it will have little strength. Use a magnet to test the original studs - I assume they are steel, but on our aluminum cars I guess there is a remote possibility that they are aluminum. If they are aluminum (aluminium for our friends in the U.K. and former Colonies), you may want to consider finding an aluminum bolt for this procedure.

Use a center punch to mark the center of the broken stud. With the drill bit mounted in your electric drill, use the other studs as alignment guides and drill a hole at the spot you punched, taking care not to drill too deeply. I'm guessing you can drill 1/2" without damaging anything, but don't take my word for it.

Tap the new hole. Once you get the tap started, about every 1/2 turn of advancement, back the tap out to clear the chips. This will help reduce damage to your new threads.

Select a bolt of sufficient length (2 inches?) and thread a nut onto the bolt as far as it will go by hand. Add one or two fender washers large enough to cover the hole in the suspension tower where the shock mounts. Put some Loctite Red or other semi-permanent threadlocker on the threads of the bolt and thread it into the new hole, snugging it up "just so."

Thread the nut you put on the bolt downward until it contacts the fender washer(s). Surround the area with an old towel to catch metal chips, then use a hacksaw or angle/die grinder with a cutoff wheel to cut the head off of the bolt. Use a flat file to clean up the cut end of the bolt and a small triangular saw sharpening file to dress the threads.

Thread the nut up and off of the bolt to reform the threads at the cut end of the bolt. Apply Loctite Blue or other removable threadlocker to the base of the bolt threads above the fender washer(s). Reinstall the nut and snug it to a torque setting somewhat less than the factory spec for the original stud to avoid stripping out your new threads....

Done.



Cheers,

Don

P.S. Don't assume I thought of everything!

 

Don, your wisdom never ceases to amaze me. You need an award or something.

I'm definitely going to give that a shot, it sounds like my best bet for sure.

I do have one question though; Why a slightly smaller bolt and not larger? If I'm retapping the hole with the center of the original stud drilled out, wouldn't I want to go slightly larger instead? Or would I be essentially leaving the original stud seated in the threads and tapping through that?

I hope that question makes sense, you certainly know better than I do, I was just curious is all. Thank you!

 

Hi Revonok,

My assumption is that the original studs do not thread in from below, but either have an integral splined base that is pressed into the top plate of the air spring/shock assembly from underneath, or is riveted to the plate. I was afraid that if you used a bolt of the original diameter, you would remove too much of what remains of the base or riveted section, weakening it beyond usefulness. Using a bolt of smaller diameter would leave more metal in the base for strength.

If you can tell that the studs were threaded in, then your idea of using the same size could work. In fact, you might be able to carefully drill and chip out what remains of the old stud, chase the threads with a tap, then use a bolt long enough to thread in at least 3/8 in. or 1/2" but not so far that it fouls against anything inside the air spring. I don't know of the parts of the old stud under the shock top plate will be able to fall free into the dust gaiter on the bottom of the shock, or if they may be trapped somewhere higher in the assembly, potentially posing a risk to the air spring bladder....

Please let us know what you figure out!

Cheers,

Don

 

That makes alot of sense thank you for clarifying.

Updates of my progress with pictures are soon to come just to make it easier on anyone else if they ever encounter the same problem, probably on Sunday!

 

Good idea Don.

You could also just clean it up really well and epoxy the whole thing in a pinch. Probably get you thru a long trip if needed.

 

Unfortunately things came up and I was unable to get to this project over the weekend. I'm going to have to continue to drive very carefully to work this week, but I have all of next week off with PTO thank the lord. I'll report back soon.

 

It's not a bad idea to drive carefully, but you've still got 75% of the holding power at the top of that shock, so personally, I wouldn't be overly nervous that the three remaining studs are going to break just because one stud is broken.

Cheers,

Don