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Sat Feb 12, 2011 10:08 am

I stopped at a wrecking yard the other day and on a whim decided to pickup a set of Jetta struts. I thought I might be able to use the springs and the offset lower perch to lower the front of my 411 a bit. After staring at the Jetta set up I realized that if I adapted the entire upper mount and spring to the 411 I could move the upper mount backwards in the car easily 1/2 inch and maybe more than 3/4 inches, the top mount and spring being significantly smaller in diameter than the Type 4 setup. It would just take a little fabrication and welding and I would have an extra degree or more of positive caster.

Anyone care to comment on this? How much positive caster do people think would be optimum?

Sat Feb 12, 2011 2:57 pm

Been there...done that...won't work. Actually the strut valving is not far off. The quantum/Audi 4000 cartridge is actually fairly close...but fare enough off to cause compression circuit issues.

The real issue with going to springs and struts from a Jetta or Gold is that the spring rate is WAAAY wrong. It snaps ball joint springs and tears up bushings on the 412 because the front end is too lightly loaded for that spring rate.

That being said....about 2.5 degrees to a maximum of 3 degrees iss ideal. It is also dirt simple to do without even touching the struts. There is castor adjustment built into the 411/412....but oddly it only allows you to split or equalize the castor from side to side...all the while....causing the camber to become unequal while you are doing it.

The easy way to do this is to remove the front subframe....and with a hand drawn pattern and die-grinder...elongate the holes for the front control arm pivot points and add an eccentric bolt just likeyou have on the rear trailing wishbones. They are easy to find. that takes care of the camber issues.

Then....you take the front subframe or T-piece into a machine shop and have them machine a slot through the ends of the subframe where the current bolt holes are at the ends of the T. Have it milled and enlarged towards the rear. You need to enlarge the slot about 1"from front to back with a mill bit the same diameter as the bolt. ith me so far?
Then have a bushing tube of steel....just like you find inside of the front control arm bushing...sawn in half down the middle (I did mine with a dremel tool and a hacksaw). Then have this welded in vertically at the back of the slot you had milled. If this is done well it looks as good as factory.

What you end up with is a slot that is about 3/4" long instead of a single bolt hole.

So you ask...why does the rear bolt hole at the bottom of the T not need thos slot... :lol: ...because its bolt hole and T nut....if you look....in the body is already slotted to slide fore and aft. Its already set up for this.

What is allows is the whole subframe to be shifted forward 3/4"....then balanced in side to side...because the T nuts in the body for the front two bolts are slotted. This should give a hair over 2* cator. Major improvement.
Once the castor is adjusted...then use your new eccentric bolts to adjust camber.

If you go ahead and change over to the Audi 4000 strut with the adaptor stub....you will have already lowered the front end by about 1"....gaing efffectively about another 1* of castor for a total of about 3*.
fabulouss handling especially with the valving of the Audi cartridge. Ray

Sat Feb 12, 2011 7:00 pm

I keep hearing how going to the Audi cartridge is going to lower the front, but I just don't see how. The only time the cartridge has anything to do with the height of the car is when its at the limits of its travel, and one certainly wouldn't want to run their vehicle there most of the time. It is the spring, the spring mounts and the strut head assembly that determine ride height. Put the whole thing together with any strut and it should give the same ride height.

I also see no way I could move the T frame forward without causing clearance problems between the tire and the wheel well opening, there just isn't much room there now with my stock diameter x 195mm wide tires and stock offset 5 1/2" wide wheels.

The Jetta spring rate could certainly be a problem, might have to get a set of custom springs made if I went that route. Big empty trunk up front verses a heavy engine and tranny package, kind of apples and oranges.

Mon Feb 14, 2011 5:44 pm

Quite simple.
It uses a totally different top stub to hook up with the strut bushing. That stub is lowered 1". It lowers the front end to near level. The fact that the rear of the car actually pivots around the rear axle...is what brings the rear up slightly.
This combined with the lowering of the front strut brings the car to dead level all the way around. The much better than stock ....but same proportionality valving of the Audi cartridge....plus the fact that the 1" of lowering in the front is done by compressing the ride control portion of the spring by 1"...means that you no longer need that nose high attitude to allow you to drive with a fully loaded trunk to control the compression movement.

This is an easy 200% upgrade to the front end....especially when used with 205/60-15's. Along with the tires.....you get an effective 2" +of lowering all the way around. Ray

Mon Feb 14, 2011 5:49 pm

Wildthings wrote: I keep hearing how going to the Audi cartridge is going to lower the front, but I just don't see how. The only time the cartridge has anything to do with the height of the car is when its at the limits of its travel, and one certainly wouldn't want to run their vehicle there most of the time. It is the spring, the spring mounts and the strut head assembly that determine ride height. Put the whole thing together with any strut and it should give the same ride height.

I also see no way I could move the T frame forward without causing clearance problems between the tire and the wheel well opening, there just isn't much room there now with my stock diameter x 195mm wide tires and stock offset 5 1/2" wide wheels.

The Jetta spring rate could certainly be a problem, might have to get a set of custom springs made if I went that route. Big empty trunk up front verses a heavy engine and tranny package, kind of apples and oranges.

If you are close to the wheel well right now with 195's...its because your sidewall height is too high to be using with that tire width. I am running 205/60's and have no issues with being too close to the wheel well anywhere. I have also run 205/55's....though those are the limit with respect to longterm ball joint life in my opinion.

I am running mangles 5.5 x 15 356 style chromies....the basic back of the magazine rim. The offset should be pretty close to stock.

Also moving the T piece forward...we are talking 3/4" here. If your tire cannot move forward 3/4" without impinging on something.....your offset is odd or the tire is. I ran this for roughly 60k miles without even getting close to the fender edges. Ray

Mon Feb 14, 2011 6:39 pm

My 195/65-15's are very close to the same diameter as your 205/60-15 yet I only have about a finger width of clearance to the inner fender at full lock. Maybe that is a difference between a 411 and a 412?

I can't visualize what you are doing to the top of the strut. Do you have pics? Which T4 parts are you using and which Audi parts?

Tue Feb 15, 2011 3:25 pm

It might be an offset issue but its not the tire width that gets you on the 411/412...its the sidewall height. But then again...my 205's are still higher than your 195's.
I'll check on what offset I have on my wheels. There is plenty of clearance on mine...especially bearing in mind that with the Audi strut, even with a fully loaded trunk teh front end will not travel very far over bumps.

Whats different on the strut? Its like this: On all struts the spring will keep the strut cartridge fully extended at all times...except for a set amount that the weight of the car compress the strut spring when the car is on the ground and sitting still.

The the complete strut assembly minus the compressed range at rest is the car height....right?

The difference is that the Audi strut was chosen for its valving. I looked for years for something that would fit into the 411/412.....and this is even before getting into valving issues. I found one or two struts that were close....but because they were front engined and had different weight and spring characteristics they were a no-go in valving....and needed physical mods just to fit.

So I started working backwards and found a strut that had excellent valving proportions. Very nearly the same same compression and rebound valving....but with more control force in both directions. This means its nearly idnentical to the 411/412 cartridge...except that it has about 15% more rebound control....where the 411/412 was severely lacking.....and its gas and oil.

The trouble was that the Audi strut rod is some 5-6" shorter than the 411/412 strut rod. :wink:
This is the key. The 411/412 strut rod is overly long because it simply has to reach somewhere far away...an abberation of design.
The 411/412 only actually uses about 4"-5" maximum of its total strut rod for stroke length.

So only wanting to lower a hair over an inch....I simply made a machined extension stub to screw onto the top of the shaft of the Audi strut cartridge. That stub does not bring the Audi strut cartridge up to the same length...it brings it up to a 1" shorter length than the 411/412 cartridge.

So the difference is that side by side the Audi strut is shorter using the stock spring than a 411/412 cartridge using a stock spring....so the strut bushing/bearing sits 1" closer to the lower spring perch. This means the front end sits lower because it rides on that bushing/bearing plate

This method preloads the spring slightly tighter into the ride control portion of the spring...not the load control. You could go another 1"+ lower into but thats about it. Any tighter and you lose ride control because the spring becomes to stiff. It gets destructive and is a really harsh ride after that.

But that 1"+ of lowering I built in along with the better valving of the gas/oil strut....makes for killer handling.

Its just a shorter strut cartridge using the stock spring. The stub is simply there to make the rod long enough to reach the strut bearing without overcompressing the spring. Ray

Tue Feb 15, 2011 4:33 pm

JUH HEE ZUZ!!!
More rocket science here. :roll: Tell you what, when the time comes I'm just going to bring mine on over to you, Ray, Okay? :lol:

chrismo

Wed Feb 16, 2011 8:01 am

raygreenwood wrote: So the difference is that side by side the Audi strut is shorter using the stock spring than a 411/412 cartridge using a stock spring....so the strut bushing/bearing sits 1" closer to the lower spring perch. This means the front end sits lower because it rides on that bushing/bearing plate

I haven't tried Ray's Audi rod extension and the stock spring, but I have worked with the Audi insert and have modified struts. Using the rod extension to lower the car seems to eliminate the unloaded droop travel of the strut. For the rod to control ride height it must be at full extension with wheels on the ground. With the rod extension, it appears the spring has been pre-loaded beyond the weight of the car so he bench height of the strut doesn't change with car weight and the rod remains at full extension. When more weight is added to the car (driver, passenger, luggage, etc), the spring may deflect further and some droop travel may be created so the wheel can droop under cornering and when traveling over pot-hole. Since the spring hasn't been changed, it seems the car would be at the same ride height as stock with driver. When the driver gets out of the car, the shortened rod extension prevents the spring from recoiling and the car appears lower. But when loaded with driver, it may be at the same height as stock. If the driver weight does not deflect the spring past it's preload, then the car may be lower than stock but may not have droop travel. Again, I don't have first-hand experience with Ray's combo, but I think :roll: I understand how the strut works.

I chose to lower my car using Audi inserts (stock rod length) with a shorter BMW E30 M3 spring having similar spring rate to the stock Type4 spring. Pictures/info here. The Jetta springs may be too stiff.

I did slot the T-subframe per Ray's recommendations and have found no problems. With my wheels and offsets, I had to roll the fender lips and limit steering rack to prevent the tire from rubbing the arch. The rubbing is front and back so I don't think the extra caster is a major factor in fender clearance.

Wed Feb 16, 2011 10:11 am

Bill...you are not fully correct on the issues this set up has. Yes...they are real potential issues, but set up within the parameters I have with this valving and spring and stub length...there are no handling or droop issues.. You need to try this. There are still some details you are missing.

When you use the Audi cartridge with the short adaptor stub....the car will never again be at what you call stock height. The strut...is physically shorter when completly assembled. The front end is automatically lowered by 1".

Your worry about droop travel is not a worry at all. There is still plenty of compression of the spring when the weight of the car is put on it.
In fact the amount of extra compression of the spring with the weight of the car on it...or what Bill calls droop travel...is very nearly identical to what you get with a fully loaded trunk on stock struts.

This happens because the stock springs have a very long and soft ride control or comfort zone on the top of the springs. Its why these springs are so long.
They accomplished a long and variable ride control zone...and a very high load zone for that huge trunk...by having a very long spring with lots of coils.
Contrary to your belief....all of the springs on the 411/412 were all very progressive. Don't let the coil design (early to late and blue and yellow series) fool you at first glance. The later spring that looks like it has a single spring rate is in fact very progressive. It accomplished this through variances if coil thickness....not winding spacing....and temper of the coils. You will also notice that on all, the load control zone on the bottom section flattens out. The temper here is much higher.

The difference is that the original stock strut rod was too long and the load control section of the bottom of the spring was quite high. It was an absolute miscalculation on the designers/engineers part.

What you get is a nose high attitude because they made the strut rod too long....because they believed that the front end would need the extra rod travel when the trunk was fully loaded.

With the sorry valving on the stock oil struts.....you usually did need this extra rod length when the trunk was fully loaded. The thing that made the valving difficult on the stock strut was the very long and powerful spring.

Once you fully loaded the trunk...sucking up that extra strut rod length and making the front end level...or even slightly lower than level at times, you are getting into the load control section of the springs.
When loaded they handled well....but the stock strut valving could not handle the rebound rate of this long spring when it unloaded.
This would and could sling the whole front end.....plus all that weight in the trunk...upward on rebound....running to the full extension of the strut rod. This caused lots of handling issues and was very destructive to the bonded strut bushings from early and middle years 411 and 412.

With the Audi strut valving (and the gas charge)....you now have the valving rate and control that eliminates the need for extra strut rod length. So you can set it dwon to level or slightly below level without requiring teh extra strut stroke that caused the nose high appearance.

The stock spring was very well designed and calculated for the car....it was just poorly damped. Its ride control area (the top) can handle upwards to 2"+ of compression with no issues. Beyond that....there will be problems and new valving for teh strut will have to be found again. Ray

Wed Feb 16, 2011 3:03 pm

raygreenwood wrote: When you use the Audi cartridge with the short adaptor stub....the car will never again be at what you call stock height. The strut...is physically shorter when completly assembled. The front end is automatically lowered by 1".
So, the preload exceeds weight of car and driver? Rod is at full extension with wheels on the ground and driver in front seat? If so, zero droop travel (see below for definition).

raygreenwood wrote: Your worry about droop travel is not a worry at all. There is still plenty of compression of the spring when the weight of the car is put on it.
In fact the amount of extra compression of the spring with the weight of the car on it...or what Bill calls droop travel...is very nearly identical to what you get with a fully loaded trunk on stock struts.
Correction - droop travel is the rod length change at rest to full droop - car on lift, rod fully extended. Bump travel is the rod length change at rest to fully loaded riding on the bump stops with bump stop compressed. Droop travel + bump travel = Full rod travel.

Wed Feb 16, 2011 4:31 pm

Bill K. wrote: raygreenwood wrote: When you use the Audi cartridge with the short adaptor stub....the car will never again be at what you call stock height. The strut...is physically shorter when completly assembled. The front end is automatically lowered by 1".
So, the preload exceeds weight of car and driver? Rod is at full extension with wheels on the ground and driver in front seat? If so, zero droop travel (see below for definition).

raygreenwood wrote: Your worry about droop travel is not a worry at all. There is still plenty of compression of the spring when the weight of the car is put on it.
In fact the amount of extra compression of the spring with the weight of the car on it...or what Bill calls droop travel...is very nearly identical to what you get with a fully loaded trunk on stock struts.
Correction - droop travel is the rod length change at rest to full droop - car on lift, rod fully extended. Bump travel is the rod length change at rest to fully loaded riding on the bump stops with bump stop compressed. Droop travel + bump travel = Full rod travel.

So, the preload exceeds weight of car and driver? Rod is at full extension with wheels on the ground and driver in front seat? If so, zero droop travel (see below for definition).

No...Thats not what I said at all. And its not what happens at all. When you set the car on the ground...there is compression of the spring. Not as much as stock using the Audi strut because I got rid of that un needed rod length (which allowed an excessive unloaded length of the spring)...but still plenty.
Bear in mind that what is being compressed when the car is sitting still on the ground is the soft ride control portion of the spring. With normal weight (full tank, driver but empty trunk).....and until you start moving and adding force from compression.....the ride control portion of the spring can compress quite a long way....before actually doing any compression of the load bearing coils at the bottom. Its the beauty of a progressive spring.

The ride control coils however...are rate sensitive...not so much weight sensitive as the load control coils are. In reality they all work the same way but being that you have several sections of the spring that have higher and lower tension levels...some sections (the ride control upper section) respond quickly to minor movements of the suspension which apply minor amounts of force as compared to the amount of weight or force it takes to flex the load coils down below.

They make progressive coil sections in one of several ways (a) varying wire thickness, (b) rolling/hammering the wire flatter in cross section for more tensile compression before they heat and wind the springs...common on the load section (c) varying/tapering the diameter of the coil...which is what yiou see on many modern conical strut springs that use uniform wire cross section but variable coil diameter. (d) More and less coils (e) steeper or shallower pitch on the coils (f) varying coil spacing during winding.....and many combinations of the above. The original 411 and 412 springs employ about half of these all at once.

No....the preload on this set-up does not equal the wight of the car and driver by any means. But what is unique about it...and also exactly the same as the stock strut valving and spring compression level....is that it is BALANCED against the weight of the car.

You can remove the top nut on the strut rod ...and.....it does not unload or spring up. It stays dead level....just like the stock 411 and 412 do :wink: ....and we also get droop as you call it.
This is the indicator that the extra compression I put into the coil by using a strut with a shorter rod.....is only compressing the ride control coils at this point...and not the load control coils. And.....this is correct functioning. That and the fact that the spring compresses at the top with the weight of the car. You can see it and measure it.

This is why I keep respectfully saying that you are getting too hung up in definitions and suspension theory....of which I am operating well within.....but you have not tried this combination. It has no problems at all. I have close to 100K miles on mine.
Also your thought awhile back that it would lift a wheel because it has no compression or droop...is incorrect...because it does have suspension compression.....just less of it than stock...which had far too much.

Also as I noted.....the pressure is balanced. Which means at rest it has droop....but because I am not using the actual strut rod itself to be the total length stop....the actual droop to the strut cartridge itself is less than stock.....so the internal valving section of the strut is in a more advantageous position.

Let me see if I can explain that a little better because its the heart of this modification. Its what you cannot see until you have one in your hand....and have tried this configuration.

(1) With the stock strut cartridge you have too much rod. When you load the trunk, it is strictly the ride control coils that are compressing.

(2) Because of the excessively long rod and the resulting excessively long ride control section of the spring....by the time you have loaded the car out with a heavy trunkload to make it sit level.....you have pushed quite a bit of rod back into the strut cartridge on the original set up

(3) If you know the fluid flow path inside of the original strut cartridge...which is nothing like a strut insert cartridge....it causes an imbalance of fluid pressures from top side to bottom side of teh piston because the compresssion is done by weight over time (the loaded trunk) not by the energy of hitting a bump.
This screwed the valving up for rebound because it would cause a half full top chamber for fluid. This is why the front end of 411 and 412 is quite floaty when heavily loaded and rebounds excessively....making one thing that it has an excessively long stroke. It only has excessive stroke because it has poor control from poor valving and design.

(4) With the stock strut....with a fully loaded trunk....the strut piston is already about 4-5" down the tube as I noted above.
...where is very close to be hard onto the load control coils.

(5) With the Audi cartridge...I started with a shorter rod, compressed a few more ride control coils....so now we start with the front end level without having to load the trunk to get it that way....and the piston at level is only about 3" down the bore so it creates much more even compression of gas and oil. Its alot more like how modern cars are set up.

(6) The cool thing is that the way the front end is cantilevered (long nose)...the weight of driver and passenger have very little effect on the front end. A fully loaded trunk on the Audi set up only compresses about another 1" maximum.
You just do not need huge travel in this car if its properly sprung and damped.....because the body can move quite well because the control arms are so long and they are sprung at the center.

If this had short A-arms mounted outboard...the range of motion in them in degrees per inch of travel would have to be huge. On the 411 412 its actually a very narrow arc that must be described at the control arm pivot point to create a wide arc at the ball joint end.

These cars do not need a huge range of travel to the strut. Typcilaly under normal load...sitting level on the ground if you reach under the strut boot and mark the strut rod at the oil seal with a marker.... then fill the trunk and push the front end down to its maximum and reach under and mark it again ...and then lift the front end off the ground and mark it again.....you see a grand total of about 2.25" to 2.5" of travel in either direction of travel based around level. A total stroke of about 5" give or take. Ray

Wed Feb 16, 2011 5:40 pm

Okay Ray, so there is droop travel with the rod extension - thanks for clarifying that. The front wheels need to be free to extend to handle corners and dips in the road. Your magic appears to be the way you preload the spring. It sounds like the preload causes the stock spring to reduce the effective spring rate so the car is lowered. Interesting :wink:

Typical lowering methods:
* add weight
* shorten spring
* reduce spring rate
* lower perch locations

Ray's method: reduce effective spring rate by increasing spring preload

I don't intend to insult or argue, I just don't get it... If the spring doesn't change, the perch locations are the same, the car weights the same, the rod is not at full extension, then how can the ride height change? It appears the answer is that the effective spring rate is reduced because the spring is compressed more. This defies my understanding of springs, so it's worth discussing further :oops:

Wed Feb 16, 2011 11:31 pm

think in the idea of a lever in the suspension
alot of travel on one end and not alot on the other

and its not that its compressed
the audi cartridge will still be fully extended but set lower (even with the extendo stud)
comparitavely to the stock set up
Yes you can just lower the perch but I Believe that would let you get Past the ride controll and More in to the load bareng faster

when the inside of the lever moves lets say 4" the outer(suspension) will move 1-2"

compressing the ride controll portion of the spriongs is Just tightening it up
yes it will be closer to the load bearing section but the distance/rate at wich it moves will be tighter
and not MORE likely to hit that other range

you can go the E30 or M3 way ( i probably will)and use the audi cartridges
with that the Whole overview of distance will be shorter
thus lowering the car

the springs is what gives you ride height
finding a shorter but equivelent spring is great!!
but you also need the cartridge to match
regardless of the spring
the cartride does the dampening
thus must be correct or close for the front

if i am correct as the car sits STOCK
there is no real tention on the spring and cartridge
meaning you dont need a spring compressor to take them apart
once they are out of the car they are at full extention...
the weight of the car is Nothing to the capacity of the spring

ever just stepped into your trunk(or filled it with kids :roll: )

there is only about 4" of travel
Thats the ride control portion
thats why even tho someof us want to lower them pretty far
we have to figure out how to do it so that it doesnt sit at the top or below the line between Ride Control and Load Bearing

getting 4 or more incher drop would be hard for these cars
to do correctly
if you could even do it correctly

we just need good pics/years/part#s of the correct E30 or M3 springs

Thu Feb 17, 2011 8:21 pm

Ray, just one question.
If, with a shorter strut rod (the audi unit with stub), the car is lowered with the stock spring, then why:
Quote: You can remove the top nut on the strut rod ...and.....it does not unload or spring up. It stays dead level....just like the stock 411 and 412 do

In both instances, the car is supported by the (stock) spring only, because you have unbolted the struts.
In both instances, when you unbolt the struts, the car does not move up or down.
In one instance, the car is lower than the other.
In both instances, the spring is the same.
In one instance, the car is lower than the other.

How is this possible, I do not understand.

Fri Feb 25, 2011 5:28 am

Bradey Bunch wrote: Ray, just one question.
If, with a shorter strut rod (the audi unit with stub), the car is lowered with the stock spring, then why:
Quote: You can remove the top nut on the strut rod ...and.....it does not unload or spring up. It stays dead level....just like the stock 411 and 412 do

In both instances, the car is supported by the (stock) spring only, because you have unbolted the struts.
In both instances, when you unbolt the struts, the car does not move up or down.
In one instance, the car is lower than the other.
In both instances, the spring is the same.
In one instance, the car is lower than the other.

How is this possible, I do not understand.

I still do not understand either, I just don't see how the ride height can be altered unless the spring perches are moved or the spring itself is changed, as the strut has no affect on static load bearing.

Sun Feb 27, 2011 3:29 pm

Where do you keep getting this idea that the strut has no bearing on static load bearing? The strut has everything to do with ride height and static load bearing.

There are two spring perches...top and bottom. In this mod the top spring perch is lowered via a shorter strut rod. It changes the dynamic of how the spring is compressed with the vehicle weight on it.

I cant help you any further. I think between STF and Samba Ive written over a hundred pages on it, provided pictures and diagrams...and...my car is nicely lowered and level in the front end...and handles far better to boot.
You either hang out in disbelief....or when its time for new struts....get busy with it. I have nothing to sell you and nothing to gain by making this up....and I'm probably the last person in the world who would do anything halfway with my 412.
use Bills method...use my method...or research your own. Mine works...Bills works.....and I'm betting that at close to 100k miles I have more miles on mine than anyone has on theirs. Ray

Sun Feb 27, 2011 3:41 pm

raygreenwood wrote: Where do you keep getting this idea that the strut has no bearing on static load bearing? The strut has everything to do with ride height and static load bearing.

There are two spring perches...top and bottom. In this mod the top spring perch is lowered via a shorter strut rod. It changes the dynamic of how the spring is compressed with the vehicle weight on it.

I cant help you any further. I think between STF and Samba Ive written over a hundred pages on it, provided pictures and diagrams...and...my car is nicely lowered and level in the front end...and handles far better to boot.
You either hang out in disbelief....or when its time for new struts....get busy with it. I have nothing to sell you and nothing to gain by making this up....and I'm probably the last person in the world who would do anything halfway with my 412.
use Bills method...use my method...or research your own. Mine works...Bills works.....and I'm betting that at close to 100k miles I have more miles on mine than anyone has on theirs. Ray

Ray I just don't understand how what you have done would lower the vehicle, in fact it you lowered the top perch below its stock position relative to the body it should raise the vehicle. If I could understand how what you did worked I would be inclined to copy it, but I just can't understand it. The idea that the strut insert carries any load is just plain wrong. If I remove the nut from either of my struts while the struts are in the car the strut cartridge will very slowly collapse on it own or can be easily pushed down with a finger.