Midnite Mechanic, FAIL

After the previous night’s frustration with drillling, I decided to seek out professional help. Found RHT Enterprise listed under machine shops and location was in town, right off of Ward Ave. Spun by on Tuesday while out on a service call. Found the space after walking around a bit, I had actually walked right past it the last time I had my alignment done. Knocked on door, seems no one was around.

Today, wednesday I gave them a call and he called back. It seems he’s there after work and weekends. Made an appointment and went by right after work. Small space, but he has a good size mill, lathe, bandsaw crammed in there. It takes him half an hour to mill out the four holes exactly where I want. Sweet. During the days he’s actually at UH. Pretty cool guy, I’ll go back if I need to.

After this is done, I’m excited to head home and get this done! As soon as I get home, I break out the angle grinder to take off the unneeded tabs. Showers of sparks later, they’re gone, and I clean up the struts. Looking good.

I take the strut case over to the spare parts FX to dry fit it. The stock strut you can see the base is recessed for clearance. The new custom moded one is tight, but it just fits!

I finally insert the Koni cartridge in the strut body. The cartridge has raised bumps on its side for an intentional tight fit. You use the bolt through the base to draw the cartridge tightly into the casing. Yeah, after pulling the existing strut & taking it apart, I can put the spring and new top mount together and install this baby!

Slide it into place… sliiiiide it into place…. Muscle it a little as this strut has stronger pressure. Alright, there, it’s in rought position. Try to install bolts. Hm, WTF? I have another one of those, oh cr@p moments. F! I forgot to take into account the bolt that is needed to hold the cartridge in the strut! More curses. This isn’t going to fit.

Go to reinstall original strut, but might as well use the new top mounts I had bought years ago but never installed. To add insult to injury, these mount’s bolts don’t quite match up. Quality Taiwan? Brand is KYB which is Japan company, but these mounts are made in Taiwan. What a pain. Big FAIL for me. Now I need to try and find another ’90 Corolla AE92 to swipe rear struts from to try again. I figure this time drill the upper hole. That should give me clearance on the bottom. Only downside is it will have effect of rasing the rear about half an inch. I’m also hoping the slightly larger diameter won’t cause any geometry problems, but I won’t know until I find another set. I don’t anticipate it will, might effect the camber, which I can attempt to adjust with aftermarket adjusting bolts if I have to. Sigh, so close, yet so far. Time to go to sleep, it’s past midnite….