I recently bought a Nissan Maxima wagon with a MacPherson Strut rear suspension. The struts are toast, so I went to the parts house, and they sent me home with a pair of cartridges. The problem is, the current struts are not cartridge type units.
I removed the spring, and got the internals to come out. There is a cylinder with a piston, and this is filled with oil that gets pused and pulled through a metering hole. My problem is, I took the stuff out from the top of the shock body, and there is a considerable amount of oilk remaining in the bottom. The new cartridge will not go in because the oil is in the way. I am resisting removing the bolts that hold the strut to the suspension alignment parts, but if I caved in and did this, I could simply turn the strut over and pour the oil out.
Assuming I can get the spring back on going the way I am going, how can I get the remainder of the oil out? I am thinking that I can drill a small hole in the bottom and let it drain. My question is, can I get the struts back together while they are physically mounted in the car, or do I have to remove them completely? It is starting to look like the struts must be removed so that the springs can be taken off and then reassembled. If I must remove the struts completely, then draining the remaining oil is as easy as turning the strut body upside down, but then I have alignment issues to deal with later that I was hoping to avoid.