Mecklenburg

[quote name='lenore' post='372341' date='May 20 2009, 02:04 PM' Just wanted to caution you, the shock has a "d" flat cut in it where the bearing and strut mount go. It is possible to missalign this and torque it down and bind the bearing. Sorry wish I had a picture. The strut if mounted correctly will not bind no matter how tight you torque the nut. As for the three bolts there should be no problem. Also the mount is marked to go only in one direction facing forward. If you mount it incorrectly it will bind the strut. Lenore; I tore it apart again because leaving the strut shaft bolts lightly torqued didn't work either. In fact, one of them began to rattle over bumps. So after removing the struts again, I looked it over and even assembled it without the spring to test the bearing movement. I concur with what you are saying about how torquing that center bolt should not matter. It does not squeeze the two plates down onto the bearing as I assumed, it only secures the top plate to the strut shaft. The bottom plate only applies pressure on the bearing due to the spring. And as you noted, I did align this top plate with the slots on the strut shaft. You can see my setup from the attached photos. So, I'm back to what is causing the creaking? I have no noise when the strut is assembled without the spring. Placing the spring into the equation, and the strut mount becomes very hard to turn by hand and I get the creak or groan. I did not have this problem with the old worn out struts. The new struts are Monroe from Autozone. They also turn freely and make no noise without the spring. With the spring in the equation, I attempted to "hear" the noise source by listening through a long socket extension, but could not isolate the noise location. My new theory is that the strut itself is causing the noise, but I’ll have to search the forums and try Monroe customer service to figure that out. I ended up putting the strut back on the car. At least I feel its safe to drive, just annoying. Thanks for the feedback.

Just wanted to caution you, the shock has a "d" flat cut in it where the bearing and strut mount go. It is possible to missalign this and torque it down and bind the bearing. Sorry wish I had a picture. The strut if mounted correctly will not bind no matter how tight you torque the nut. As for the three bolts there should be no problem. Also the mount is marked to go only in one direction facing forward. If you mount it incorrectly it will bind the strut. Thanks Lenore; I did note the face-out alignment marks on the rubber isolator, and both mount pieces. I also turned the strut shaft so that the notch aligned with the top mount cut, and then made sure it stayed in the top mount as I tightened the nut. I don't recall it being a "D" cut, but rather rectangular on my 97 ES300. I tightened it enough to test that it didn't wobble on the bolt shaft, and turned freely, but if I torqued down the nut, I had difficulty turning the top of the mount and it creaked. So that's why I assumed I'd over torqued a bad design, and backed off both nuts and am now creak free. I had no creaking sound before I changed my struts as well. The nut I'm using is a lock nut, and it is snug, just not torqued down. I also have the service manual, so I have pics of what you are describing.

From my experience with the same problem on a 1997 Lexus ES300, the strut mounts are designed as such that you cannot torque the center strut bolt too tightly without binding the strut mount bearing. Look at the service manual. The 3 bolts that secure the mount to the frame are 59 lbs and the center strut bolt is about 29 lbs. My mistake, I tightened the center bolt until it stopped and cranked it down to about 70, based on larger bolt size. I had creaking when turning or going over bumps at low speed. I also noticed this later when I took it apart and turned the strut mount by hand. The problem cannot be fixed by applying oil, as some threads here suggest. And in my case, a new strut mount would have been a waste of money (I tried this too, and took them back).