Is this a bad idea, Struts and shocks

teemoney

teemoney

Member
Location
Toronto, Canada
Car
2007 Infiniti fx35
Last week my cousin took my FX for a ride and told me my front struts are gone. While talking to a friend of mine who has a 2008 FX he told me he has his old struts and shocks in his garage. Now he bought his FX in 2009 and 4 months later he put air ride on his FX so his shocks and struts have maybe 25k miles. So is it ok for me to install these? I don't know much about struts and was wondering if his struts come with strut bearings? Will i need an alignment. My cousin is going to change them all for me but i was just wondering these things. Thanks for any help in advance.

---------- Post added at 05:29 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:20 AM ----------

Ok, so i just realized the strut bearing comes with the struts he took off his FX. Wasn't sure where they were located. So i should be good
 
U shouldn't need an alignment doing just the fronts. But most suspension for trucks wear around 60-75k. So at that point u will be doing it all over again. If ur doing the labor yourself, I would say put them in.

Strut bearing are top.
 
Just found out i need control arms, so'll i'll do everything this week and get an alignment. Also found out my friend cut his springs but he said it actually drove good and gave a decent drop. I'll just use them till i get my new kyb's and h&r's

---------- Post added at 01:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:57 PM ----------
meme405 said:
Need more information about this FX on air....
Click to expand...

I posted pics on here, even pics of his new interior
 
So since i am going to buy new struts and shocks and h&r's would this be ok in the meantime. I wanted to use my friends old stuts with cut springs (one coil was cut) on the front and leave my back as is. Will this look dumb since the front will be lowered and the back stock height? After doing some reading i see people say don't cut the rear stock springs so i am thinking of not using his rear springs since they're cut. I believe my rear shocks are still good and can wait until i get the new kyb's. Just not sure if i should use his cut front and rear springs. He said it drove good but after reading on here it makes me wonder how good they really fealt
 
Front springs can be cut since the part you're cutting is linear so spring rate remains unchanged. Still a dumb idea on stock springs since a shorter spring + same spring rate equals more bottoming out. Cutting the rear springs is trickier but it should still be ok since the part that is getting cut should be linear. But I believe it will be much harder to seat the spring if it's cut. And the same issue of shorter spring and same rate applies.

I don't understand why you don't just wait and get your new parts. This seems like a bunch of work - swap suspension for these parts and then do it all over again. FWIW, I ran H&R cut in the front with standard H&R rears (spring mount mod) and it looked fine. Slight rake, but no big deal. So if you ran cut springs in front and not cut in rear it would look ok. It just seems like a bunch of work you'll get to do twice for no real gain.
 
Well here's the thing Shadow and i totally agree with you. When we tried to change stuts yesterday the lower strut bolts broke and one even broke off inside so i need to take it to a mechanic to heat it up so we can get it out. Also the stabalizer link bolt stripped. So now i need a stabalizer link (for both aides since it's not good to just change one), i need outer tie rods (tires had some play when moving back and forth) and again i need the strut bolts. Right now my FX is parked at my cousins and i'm drving a rental. So i can't wait as i need to fix everything this week. So now i am debating if i should change all the struts and shocks and springs to my friends cut ones or if i should just do the front and leave the ack as is. I know i will also need an alignment. If the right with cut stock sprngs isn't bad i could just leave it like that for a little while and maybe save up for coil overs. What do you suggest? Trying to get some direction here lol
 
Can you just swap your OEM springs to your friend's struts? If getting the car back on the road is most important, why bother with cut springs and all that. But if you don't want to disassemble springs/struts, you can swap his cut ones over. Should ride ok most of the time unless you hit big bumps/dips. And unless both stabilizer links are messed up, you can replace just one. I did when mine froze on during C/O install. Had one swapped out and that was 2 years ago, no issues since then.
 
Well the thing is his front springs were welded on the strut so i can't really take them off and use my stock uncut springs. That's why i was wondering if i should even mess with the back and just use his front cut springs but wasn't sure if that would lookd dumb. I guess i will use both his front and rear spings and struts and shocks and hope it doesn't drive too bad. So i guess with cut springs it doesn't drive as good as h&r's. So you think if i hit a nice bump and my car will bottom out? I think i will just buy one stailizer link as you suggested as well. I also could just put back on my stock struts, my car was driving fine when going fast but going over little bumps you can hear this noise and i am a little anal lol
 
He welded the springs on the strut? Why did he do that? I would worry about the welding on the spring mount since it's not meant to take that kind of heat.

The ride on cut springs will be the exact same as OEM since the springs are OEM. Until you hit a big enough bump that you bottom out. The cut springs will bottom out sooner since there is less travel. Say the OEM springs have 5" of travel and they bottom out after that. The cut springs would have less than that depending on how much was cut off. So they will bottom out sooner since there is less travel to absorb bumps. You would never know on smooth roads, but if you bottom out now, you'll bottom out more with cut springs.
 
teemoney said:
So since i am going to buy new struts and shocks and h&r's would this be ok in the meantime. I wanted to use my friends old stuts with cut springs (one coil was cut) on the front and leave my back as is. Will this look dumb since the front will be lowered and the back stock height? After doing some reading i see people say don't cut the rear stock springs so i am thinking of not using his rear springs since they're cut. I believe my rear shocks are still good and can wait until i get the new kyb's. Just not sure if i should use his cut front and rear springs. He said it drove good but after reading on here it makes me wonder how good they really fealt
Click to expand...

meme405 said:
He welded the springs to the strut!? Wtf.
Click to expand...

+1.

After hearing that... Just buy new everything and call it a day. The money u save is being wasted on the rental.
 
Well i get free rentals so that's not a problem. Ya the bottom spring coil is welded to the bottom part of the strut (the round piece). My friend drove around like that and said it drove good with no issues. Can that cause problems? My struts were not bottoming out but making a noise going over bumps slow. Maybe i should just leave my original struts and shocks and springs on until i get new struts and shocks and just change the stabilizer bar and tie rod. When he gave them to me he forgot to tell me they were cut so if i knew that from the beginning i would have never taken my strut off, which broke the bolts and the stabilizer link but my outer tie rods were gone so maybe it's good i found out now
 
I'm guessing they welded it because if you don't cut the spring exactly in the right spot, it may not seat correctly and not clock correctly. So the spring will sit crooked; welding it onto the strut would fix that. But if they had cut it correctly to begin with, it wouldn't need to be welded. My worry would be that neither the spring nor the strut are designed to be welded nor take that kind of heat. So the spring may not have the spring rate it's supposed to (high heat can change the material properties) and the spring mount on the strut may be weaker since it's been subject to high heat. Springs are usually heat treated during manufacture and subjecting them to high enough heat can change spring rate or weaken them. Same with the spring mounts.

It probably wouldn't be a problem, welding is very localized heat, it's not like they torched the whole thing. But it just seems like they did a really ghetto job on this and I'd worry that the work is sloppy. If you can't even cut a spring correctly... I'd worry a little bit about noise. The spring normally can move a tiny bit since it sits on a rubber mount. Now it's welded and can't move. So it may pop more since when you turn, the strut moves. If the weld cracks, then you have a loose spring. I know it's free, but think about the time wasted swapping stuff out.
 
I agree. Like i said i am not going to use them. I just wished he told me they were cut before i took my strut off. He forgot so it's all good. I don't like doing things a ghetto way, even when we found out they were cut i thought ghetto, i didn't expect that from my friend seeing how he spend a lot on his air ride and everything else on his FX
 
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