Darren74

Bit the bullet today and fixed the annoying clunk on the rear shocks on my 2004 Sti.
Word to the wise though if you're going to do this yourself, the 2 bolts that hold the stut to the hub were incredibly tight on mine so ensure you have the right tools before starting this job or removing the rear struts for any other reason.
Luckily the father in law had a 3/4 drive socket set and even then they took some undoing.
But well worth the effort as it's nice and quiet

Fonzey

iTrader: (5)

Did you do the grease nipple mod?

I remember bouncing up and down on a breaker bar for those 19mm bolts first time round. I make sure they're undone/retightened whenever my wheels are off now to keep them "fresh"...

Darren74

I chose not to do the grease nipple mod as I had concerns about getting all the swarf out of the chamber.
I figured if I have to do this again it will be a lot easier & quicker next time as I now know what tools are needed. I also copper slipped everything to ease removal next time if required.
The first side took me about 5 hours but the other side only took me a couple of hours once I had the right tools and knew what I was doing

Fonzey

iTrader: (5)

Good stuff, I took on the full nipple job but I bought a spare set of shocks so could take my time off the car.

Getting the swarf out wasn't too hard - the factory grease caught it all and spent plenty of time to scrape it all out, or at least push it down past the bottom seal so it was out of the way.

Enjoy, I'll give you 5 days before you find a clunk, squeek or scrape somewhere else on the car

wrx5343

I took mine to F1 auto center and they airgunned all the bolts loose for a £5. Made it alot easier to swap my struts over. Is there anything you guys recommend putting on the threads to stop it getting so seized ?

scooby87

iTrader: (5)

Nice work, I seem to forever chase knocks and rattles on mine drives me mad!

Hope yours stays knock free!

Darren74

I used copper grease on all the threads before putting it all back together, should make things a whole lot easier next time

bustaMOVEs

iTrader: (31)

So what did you actually do, if you didn't do nipple mod?

Darren74

Removed all the old grease and put new grease in, I believe the nipple mod is just a way of not having to remove the struts every time they start to knock. But now I know what's involved it doesn't bother me having to remove them again.

bustaMOVEs

iTrader: (31)

Cool, the stock grease that is used is crap stuff hence why it's a common problem, hope you used good stuff to avoid doing it again in the near future

LUCKO

iTrader: (3)

can one of you nice gentleman advise me what i need to do the above and the procedure inolved

knocking shocks on a jdm gutted

bustaMOVEs

iTrader: (31)

There's a good YouTube vid somewhere (black impreza)

Fonzey

iTrader: (5)

From what I've heard, the reason for "nippling" is a slight misconception. A few nipple fitters I've spoken to report that if they pack the grease in via a nipple, they NEVER have to refill with grease again. The nipple isn't there to allow for convenient refills as such, it's more so that it allows you to 100% fill the void inside the strut with grease.

If you fill with grease with the strut dismantled like Subaru did, and like you did - it's not possible to fill the void completely. If you go in via a nipple with the strut all constructed, you can fill all of the empty space and also get it under a bit of pressure.

I fitted the nipple but never really got time to take advantage of it, as I switched to coilovers after about six months.

Darren74

I can understand your point of packing the grease in the void under some pressure which actually makes sense. The only thing I made sure was that the void was filled with grease as I put it in, then carefully put the bump stop back in scraping excess grease out then made sure there was a good amount of grease with no gaps in the grease, but like you say it's not under any pressure.
My thoughts on the original grease that Subaru put in is that it was the wrong type?

Gambit

iTrader: (6)

aye its too hard. mine where stripped and repacked with marine grade grease, no nipple, and are perfectly fine 6mths on daily driving.

Fonzey

iTrader: (5)

The OEM grease was more like the wax!