Do you remember the bit in the first of the Tim Burton Batman movies when Jack Nicholson’s Joker expressed his envy for Batman’s kit, musing “Where does he get those wonderful toys?” I’m just as covetous of the tools in this instructional video, especially the way-cool industrial grade spring compressor the tech is using. The job is the exchange of a strut unit on an Audi A4, a car that shares much of its front suspension design with the contemporary A6 and Volkswagen Passat. It’s a complex design that requires some ingenuity—or as seen here—some fabulous special tools to disassemble.
The end result in this case is a mesmerizing demonstration of how a professional tech would undertake the task, if that tech was provided with thousands of dollars in professional equipment. Sure beats the iron mallet and pry bar I use. Check out how it’s done, and some toe tapping music too, right after the jump.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/LJBjqKHKHoY[/youtube]
Image: YouTube
Because it's Monday: Let's Watch This Wonderful Strut Changing Video
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Strut Video, you say?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F43j_Fbcfb0-
did you say The Struts?
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Pssh! What sort of needless overkill is that?
http://www.tanshanomi.com/project-x/IMG_1079_web.png-
I’m not sure whether to be impressed with the cleverness of this… tool… or to be very afraid.
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Yikes!
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Genius! And highly suspect. But in the wee hours of a morning when it’s time to finish a project and my real spring compressors are inexplicably missing, this may happen.
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Spent a few hours in the totally not a works teamCitroën garage during the Jyväskylä rally, didn’t take too long to change a strut. No pictures of the spring changing thingamabob, but if you look closely there’s a ready strut ready to be swapped in my Meeke’s car. There was probably three more too, you just can’t see them. Meeke eventually won the rally, and is also the dude who rallied a new Bentley on Top Gear a few years ago.
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I’m going to have the dealer change the front struts in a few days. Or rather an authorised service provider; they don’t sell cars, only service. With one exception they’ve always done good work for a reasonable price during the 13 years i’ve taken the car there. The strut swap is only a few tenners more than having some Russians do it in a shed. Replace the rear stabiliser dogbones at the same time so angry Mr. Inspection Man is happy.
The Focus is now officially in “something always needs-a-fixin” territory. I’m just hoping the autotranny doesn’t blow up anytime soon, it sometimes makes a chirping sound while changing from first to second. The kind of sound i imagine fluid passing by a not quite closed valve makes. Also all four doors and the trunk and the wheelarches are rusty, which means it’s pretty much worthless. The paint around all the rust is pretty damn nice though, probably because for the first ten years i washed and waxed it regularly.
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