3) Remove the brake caliper: pop off the anti-rattle clip, locate the plastic caps covering the mounting bolts on the frame side of the caliper and remove them with a hex wrench (7mm on mine – 6mm on others). It will probably be necessary to compress the caliper to remove it, especially if the rotor has a lip. It doesn’t take much pressure – I use the flathead screwdriver in the areas circled in red to put some distance between the rotor and pad (push against the METAL back of the pad, not the rotor or pad material!):

4) Use the strong wire to support the caliper – DON’T LET IT HANG FROM THE BRAKE LINE!!! Remove the brake line and ABS sensor wiring from the mounts on the strut housing.

5) Remove the caliper mounting bracket (2x 19mm bolts on my car):

6) Remove the ABS sensor: 5mm hex bolt, then twist the sensor out (easier than pulling it). Note the removed sensor circled in the picture above.

7) Remove the sway bar link (either from where it meets the sway bar or the strut housing – I chose to remove it from the strut housing). One of mine uses a 17mm nut, the other has a 16mm (former is TRW, latter is OEM/Lemforder). This can be tricky: I use a thin wrench on the bushing side and a socket/appropriate extension on the nut (sorry for the bad picture):

8) To facilitate removing and reinstalling the strut housing, I like to loosen the control arm where it meets the sub frame. This gives the steering plate some vertical movement. The only caveat in doing this is that it needs to be torqued under load when you are finished (use your ramps or put a few 2x4’s under the tires. If you don’t loosen the control arm, you’ll have to compress the spring in the car to get the strut out and risk damaging the fender in the process. Deviation: You may also want to loosen and re-torque the thrust arms under load along with the control arms. The logic here is that the bushings in these components are set for a specific suspension height when they are torqued. By lowering the car and not resetting the bushings, they will wear quickly and give an uncomfortable ride until they prematurely die. The control arm bushing bolt:

9) Now, on to the steering plate bolts (3 x 19mm – might have to rotate the steering wheel to gain access to the them around the control arm):

10) Once the accessories and sway link are removed, the area should look like this:

11) Working under the hood, remove the black plastic cap from the strut tower with the flathead screwdriver. Remove the 13mm nuts and the strut housing will slide out of the car.

12) Install the spring compressor on the old spring, put some actual tension on it so that the strut mount is moveable. Then, remove the top nut. This can sometimes be done with a plain old socket, or definitely with a hex key and a 19/22mm wrench (depending on the car model/year). I used a deep impact socket to remove and hand tools to install (NOTE: DO **NOT** use an IMPACT WRENCH or any kind of air tool when installing the sachs strut’s top nut – it will likely BREAK the strut rod!).

13) At this point, I got too involved to take many pictures. Remove the strut mount and remember the order of the parts that come off. If replacing the mount, substitute the new part into the order. Remove and de-compress the stock spring. I removed and cleaned the lower/upper spring pads and the dust shield with a light detergent. Install the new bump stop into the dust shield (slotted part goes UP towards the bottom of the strut mount!).

14) To remove the strut housing collar nut: re-mount the strut housing into the wheel. No need to lug bolt it in, simply set the hub and hold the strut housing in place with your foot. Set the monkey wrench and it’ll come out in a jiffy. Pull the old strut insert.

15) Check to see if there’s any oil in the base of the strut housing. If there isn’t anything substantial left, pour in a few ml; it acts as a heat transfer agent and will keep the new strut from banging around in there. According to Don Gale, the only time you don’t use oil (and hence, sop it up with a rag) is when the strut insert has functional components at its base that could be negatively affected by it (IE – Bilsteins have, I’m told, a threaded bolt of some sort in the base that can be affected over time).

16) Install the new strut insert. Be careful not to touch the surface area of the rod. I use some loctite on the new collar nut and finger tighten it before mounting it in the wheel again to torque it up. Obviously, I can only use the monkey wrench to ballpark the 120nm that the Sachs people want, but it does the trick.

17) Unlike the BavAuto spring, the Eibach was tough to compress…and it really had to be in order to set the mount on top:

18) Finally, set the spring pads, new bump stop/dust cover, 22mm sheath (if applicable), strut mount and spring, and then install the new top nut. I still used loctite, even though the top nut has nylock – two lines of defense. Tighten it well, that spring has a LOT of potential energy (see how compressed it is!):

19) Unwind the spring compressor. Installation of the strut housing is the reverse of removal. A few notes:

• I first set the mount through to the engine compartment (the mount has to be installed a certain way – stock/non-camber adjusted mounts have an oblong “smiley” pattern) and finger tighten the new 13mm nuts so that I can manipulate the bottom of the strut housing onto the steering plate.
• Once again, you might have to play with the steering or put a jack under the steering plate to sink the three 19mm bolts.
• Be sure to install the rotor correctly – use the lug nuts from the wheel to set it prior to tightening the hex retainer bolt. This will help assure that it isn’t unevenly set onto the hub and won’t rub the dust shield. Always tighten the lug nuts as you would draw a 5-point star without lifting the pen.
• I like to coat the hub and rotor hat (where it meets the wheel) with some high temp anti-seize grease. This will keep things from fusing together.
• Don’t forget to re-torque the control and thrust arms under load!
• Adjust the headlights.

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