Well, I had my Tokico struts installed along with my TRD lowering springs today, but there was a complication. The fronts are fine, but the rear struts are having issues. I was hoping someone may be able to shed some light on the situation. There is a rod in the middle of the each rear Tokico that is moving up and down when the shock compresses and decompresses. That means that when we were test driving it after they finished the install, even on a soft road, the top of the rods would hit the sheet metal of the car above and cause loud, worrisome clunking sounds. There is NO way this is normal; the body of the car was actually restricting the movement of the rear struts. The installer said he installed everything correctly and even double checked things. I can't imagine it would be that difficult to install a strut (this shop does these sorts of things all the time). He said the struts are mounted correctly to the bolt-in points. It just doesn't make any sense; the stock rear struts didn't have this rod movement problem, so I can't fathom why the Tokicos would be doing this. Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Matt

P.S.- The car is still at the shop; there was no way in heck I was driving it home with that sort of problem. I could really use some help resolving this; I'll be back at the shop tomorrow morning (hopefully with an idea of what's wrong). I need the car for school/work, so any help is awesome!

 

Just in case visuals are needed... I didn't have my camera with me when the showed me what the deal was, but I will attempt to show it using this MS paint diagram (you may have to use your imagination haha):


This is just so you know what parts I mean when I say mount and rod.


Basically, this is what is happening. With the interior panels off and the strut mounting locations exposed, you can see the top of the strut (aka the top side of the "mount"). As the strut moves over bumps and whatnot, the "rod" can be seen coming up through the mount. In other words, there is nothing stopping it. The rod is visible in the cabin when the shock compresses. So, because there is nothing to stop it, when the "rod" comes up, it hits the top grey area in that picture, which in reality is the car itself. It's as if the "rod" doesn't have enough room. That wouldn't make sense, though, because the stock shocks had no problem. And, like was said before, the mounting location is very self-explanatory. Any ideas as to why the "rod" is doing this? Again, it's on both sides, so I don't think it's a shock-specific problem (unless I somehow have the rear shocks for a car other than the tC). Thoughts?

 

I don't know much about the tC struts but quite possibly you might need to put spacers inside the strut housing at the very bottom. My friend had to do this on an MR2 that he was working on. Basically the new struts might be shorter than the stock ones so this causes play inside the strut housing.

 

the technician did say the tokicos were a little shorter; i just haven't heard of this issue from anyone else that got them installed. if this ends up being the case, how/where would i go about getting spacers? thanks for the reply btw

 

Sorry I just read your post in more detail but I can't open your pics. It seems like the rod should be bolted to the mounts then the whole assembly goes bolted onto the strut towers on the car.

 

pics are working for me...

when you say the rod should be bolted to the mounts... can it be? i wish i had the strut in front of me, but just from looking at pictures i don't see how it could be. haha obviously "suspension and handling" is not my most knowledgeable subforum

forced induction FTW! haha okay back on topic..

 

Well the rod should not be exposed like you say it is. The rod shouldn't be coming through the top of the strut tower. The only thing you should see if you are looking at it from the inside is the bolt that holds the rod in place.

 

What type of upper mounts are you using? Did the shop use the upper mounts from your stock struts? Because if the stock upper mounts were installed on the struts, it should not have that problem because the rod is bolted on to the top of the upper mount and there fore would not go through and hit the sheet metal.

Here's a pic of what looks like Progress coilovers with the stock upper mounts installed on them, but you get the idea, see how the two rear upper mounts are? The rod should be bolted on to the top of the upper mount and shouldnt be exposed.

 

Well to be honest, from what I saw and experienced, I don't think the shop even used an upper mount. I'm not too sure how that's possible, though. I would have thought the Tokicos would come with them... so, they should be able to install the upper mounts from the stock shocks onto the Tokicos? The fact that the Tokicos are shorter wouldn't have a bearing on that? What about the front struts? Do they need this same thing as well? Oh man, I haven't felt like this much of a noob since I first started contemplating the thought of going turbo

you can't tell this is my first time dealing with a suspension install, can you?

 

Yeah with the Tokico's, they don't come with upper mounts, so you basically have to take the ones off of your stock assemblys. This goes for both the front and rear. I'm curious as to what they used as an upper mount if they didn't the stock ones? But yeah, bring your stock struts back to them and have them take it apart and install everything they take off from the stock onto the Tokico's. In the end, you should get back the stock springs and the stock struts with no upper mounts on them at all.

I recently did a Tokico + S-tech install so that's why it's still fresh in my memory

 

ihavenosn, you have PM

 

this sounds like they did not torque the top mount rod bolt correctly, Causing the mount not to have tension on the spring. Basically causing the spring to bounce between the bottom of the shock and the top mount. Or something else that could have happened is they have not torqued the 3 support bolts to the chaise , but it really sounds like its bolts that just need to be tightened.. hope it works out for you..

 

okay i'm at the shop.. here's the deal. the only problem i'm having is that the tokico rears didn't come with bushings on the pistons... so basically the top bolt can't stop the pistons because there is no bushing to make contact with it. how did you guys solve this? can they use bushings from napa auto parts? the stock bushing isnt transferrable to the tokicos is it?

 

You should be able to reuse all the stock stuff. Doesn't seem like your shop knows what they're doing.

 

apparently not. its retarded. i will say that by looking at the stock strut, the washer looks like its on there pretty tight. they also removed the rear tokicos and i saw that there IS, in fact, a washer on it. the mechanic is saying it's not as wide as the stock washer which is why it's not hitting the upper mount. he went over to napa to get new washers. thoughts?

 

very interested in the outcome of this I am looking at getting H-techs with the tokico's.

From what it sounds like they forgot to put something on if others haven't had this problem

 

I just installed a set of Tokicos and Hotchkis springs two days ago.
I be that you're missing the bottom washer.
There is a cup-shaped washer that the rubber stopper fits into, that goes onto the strut's piston with the rubber stopper facing down, the washer should stop at the little ring on the piston just bellow the threaded portion of the piston.
Then there is a rubber washer that goes on top of the metal washer, then the upper mount piece, then another rubber washer, then a metal washer and the nut on top.

Wish I had taken some pics of the install, but don't have any.

Hope this helps.