mejojo Posted September 25, 2007 Share Posted September 25, 2007 After replacing all 4 struts, and finding each dust boot pretty much in pieces, and not having replacements, I put the new ones in without the benefit of dust boots. The dust boots would, of course, keep most road dirt off the strut rods, theoretically extending their life. (Of course, the original struts were "going naked" for quite some time, based on seeing the decomposed pieces of the original boots laying at the bottom of the springs). Has anyone added dust boots to an installed strut? I'm imagining wrapping a drape of some sort of rubber material attached at the top with a tie-wrap, or something like that. Also, I need to get some bump stops for the fronts. The originals were completely destroyed and I had no replacement to install. I thought I might be able to get away without them as the Tokico install instructions only mentioned them in the case of lowering the car, but I hit metal when I hit a little dip yesterday, so I need to take care of that asap. Has anyone picked these up somewhere? Can generic ones from AutoZone work? Or do I need the special ones that were installed? I, personally, can make sure I don't do that again, but I don't want to have to explain that and worry about it when anyone else drives the car. Joe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glenmore Posted September 26, 2007 Share Posted September 26, 2007 Joe, Glad to see you got them in! You may be able to jury rig something but the Lexus parts would be best. They are expensive and only available from Lexus. Lexus refers to them as bumper stops and insulators. I skipped the bumper stops and there doesn't seem to be any adverse effect. You certainly need the insulators, not so much for the boot but for the pad part between the strut mount and the spring. For the rears there are two pieces, one rubber pad at the bottom of the spring and the insulator/pad/boot at the top. If you just reassembled it with what was left of your insulator, i.e. the pad part without the shredded boot, you will probably be OK. Otherwise, you get to do the whole job all over again! Yup, remove strut, compress spring, etc. etc. glenmore 1990 LS400 2000 C280 1991 300CE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mejojo Posted September 26, 2007 Author Share Posted September 26, 2007 Joe,Glad to see you got them in! You may be able to jury rig something but the Lexus parts would be best. They are expensive and only available from Lexus. Lexus refers to them as bumper stops and insulators. I skipped the bumper stops and there doesn't seem to be any adverse effect. You certainly need the insulators, not so much for the boot but for the pad part between the strut mount and the spring. For the rears there are two pieces, one rubber pad at the bottom of the spring and the insulator/pad/boot at the top. If you just reassembled it with what was left of your insulator, i.e. the pad part without the shredded boot, you will probably be OK. Otherwise, you get to do the whole job all over again! Yup, remove strut, compress spring, etc. etc. glenmore 1990 LS400 2000 C280 1991 300CE The insulator parts were solid and in good order...no problems there. I think the next chance I get I'm going to attach some sort of drape around the exposed rod area if I can figure a way to do it leaving the struts installed. Perhaps chopsticks would come in handy . :D I am NOT taking those back ones out again..... Joe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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