I think they're referring to the shock absorber rod.
If I understood correctly, the reports on the 300Mclub forum were not just concerning noise but claimed that the whole assembly was shot after a comparatively short time.
And if the OEM LH and RH mounts are different (and presumably for some good reason), why do the after-market quick-strut assemblies use identical ones left and right?
Perce
Ok, so what I've done today:
Took a 13/16" Craftsman sparkplug socket and drilled out the internal
3/8" hole to 1/2". The hole is formed by a short internal shoulder, but still it was a real bear on my drill press and I had to take it in 1/32" drill-size steps. This allowed a 3/8" extension to pass through the socket. A 10 mm 6-sided 3/8" drive socket fits on the shock-rod, the 13/16" sparkplug socket on the rod nut, a short 3/8" drive extension through the sparkplug socket, and a wrench on the sparkplug socket.Even though I put the left Monroe quickstrut on exactly 2 years ago, I was surprised by the amount of corrosion on the shock-rod threads. But with penetrating oil and some effort I managed to free the strut nut and work the threads with the nut to clean them. All this with the wheels on the ground.
I didn't want to take the nut off completely - because of fear that the rod might withdraw itself down into the strut and I'd be really screwed. But looking at the height of the rod with the nut almost off vs fully tight, the rod height doesn't change - so it doesn't have any tendency to get pulled down. If true, then both the Monroe shock and the factory original shock have some sort of gas-charge (or a weak internal spring?) that gives them a natural tendency to extend the rod.
With the nut fully tight (as tight as I can make it, with no regard to a torque wrench), I can turn the rod/nut pretty easily with the 10 mm socket/wrench on the rod. Can turn it 360 degrees, multiple times. So if the rod has any seating flats on it (like the Toyota problem) then they're not making contact with anything. But nobody on the chrysler/intrepid forums mentioned anything about the monroe strut rod needing to be rotated into a seated position.
But still, the fact that I can rotate the tightened rod without much effort - should I be able to? Is that where the extra washer comes in - because they didn't put enough threads on the rod?
Looking down into the upper strut mount on the monroe I can see the 2 ears or flanges as mentioned in the service manual.
Regarding the early failure of the Monroe quick struts as mentioned in the forums - those seem to have happened in 2010, and Monroe seems to have known or learned about the failure and made some correction to them. I installed my left quick strut in Dec 2012, and the right in Dec
2013.So presumably my struts will not have the same issue that caused the problems in 2010. Now whether they have this issue with the rod nut / washer, if that is indeed a systemic issue - I don't know. I'd just like to know if you're supposed to be able to turn the rod (by grabbing the rod nut) in a normal situation.
A very small amount of play between the shoulder on the strut and the lower surface of the strut mount would easily cause the knocking that I've been feeling from that side since I put the strut on. I think by tonight I'm gonna have an extra washer under that nut...
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