I am about to change my front shocks to Koni's.

When I tried to remove the old ones I got some problems. According to the Service Manual it should be possible to just pull them out under the lower arm. It seems that the ones on the car are to fat to fit through the hole.

Have anybode seen this before?

I guess the only option is to remove the lower arm with springs and all to remove the old ones.

The Koni's look slim enough to fit through the hole.

Jan

The shocks should pull out through the hole in the lower control arm. Removing the control arm still won't allow you to remove the shock unless you pound out the lower mount on the shock. That is a whole lot more work than there should be. Once you have the top nut off the shock, you should be able to move it around enough to remove it from the bottom. It can be a tight fit but it should fit. There is no other way to do it.

What kind of shocks do you have on the front? Your Koni's shouldn't be smaller than anything else that would be on there. Is it possible you have coil-overs (shock and coil combined in one).

A pic says a thousand words if you could post one it would help.

Well, they just look thicker than the Koni's.

I don't know what they are, they have been on since I bought it three years ago. They could have been changed many years ago. They don't look like the originals and they don't look like Koni's

I will see if I can get a picture later and post for you.


Jan

Jan do you have the welded shock mount nuts on the lower control arm or the clip on style nuts? I replaced a bent lower control arm on my car and the Nova arm that replaced it had the clip on style nuts. If I remember correctly I had to remove at least one of the nut clips to get my shock in on that arm (clip protruded into the opening too far).

Hope this helps!

Thank you "Choptop"

i had the clipnuts and when removing them i could pull the old shocks out, just barely. They where about 1/8" thicker than my new Koni's.

I don't know what the old ones where except that they came from a Swedish parts supplier that only has stuff for european and japanese cars. Could have been for a Volvo :-(( who knows.

Anyway now it should handle a lot better I suppose.


Jan