A little write-up to "Short stroke" mod

[jamiemirror]

Recently I started to modify my front struts - shortening of 30 mm, coilovers and more.
I want to share some techniques that can make our life easier :-)
1. You don't need an impact wrench to disassemble the strut. The upper spring hat must be fixed in vice and you can loose the top screw.
2. When the strut is disassembled - sometimes the strut insert cannot be extracted easily. The reason - broken seal on top of the insert (near the inner sleeve of the strut housing). Sometimes the insert goes out 2-part - I don't know why the strut insert was broken in my case.
3. Strut housing cuts. You can make the whole operation at once - using good machinist with lathe. The first cut must be right under the lower spring cap - the machinist can fix the housing in the lathe using the upper part of the housing (with the inner sleeve). Then he can remove the lower spring hat and shorten the remaining tube (with internal sleeve) by 30-40mm (up to you).
PS: I made the things much more harder way :-( My first cut wasn't using lathe and now I have problems with it - and must re-cut it by hand...