I'm in the process of replacing the majority of my front end. I'm feeling great pride in the fact that I replaced the ball joint, tie-rod end, rack boot and have successfully removed the anti-roll bar from one side of the car to be staring down the barrel at the strut. This job is daunting and I definitely want to do it right. The Bentley oracle describes the disassembly fairly well, but with the "Volvo special tools", too many to mention, as what is required for this job. Can anybody help me with this? I don't have any "Volvo special tools" and want to get this done tomorrow and move on to the other side of the vehicle. Also, the way I'm thinking about it, I can loosen the nuts of the strut mount and lower the whole strut assembly and as long as the tie rod end is disconnected and the spring is slightly compressed. I should be able to pull the whole assembly out toward me to take the mount off and pull the strut out, no? Mine is a '90 240 and I've never done this before. Experienced feedback definitely welcome! Thanks.

 

In twenty years of working on vehicles, motorcycles, boat engine etc, I have only ever had to buy one manufacturer supplied tool, and that was a diesel injector setting gauge.
Generic special tools, readily available from parts stores or tool shops, and good old fashioned thinking about a problem and working around it, have always worked for me!

Regards, Andrew.

 

Just be careful with compressed coil springs. They can kill you. Use a good spring compressor if you're going to be messing with the front coils.

 

I can guarantee you that the upper strut nut is a lot more than the 15 lbs. that the Bentley states. The reason for the error is because Volvo never stated the torque in the Green books. Your going to need some form of the tool 5036 to tighten the top nut - most use an offset wrench that has been ground to fit in the hole.

How do your front control arm bushings look?

 

Here's Dave Shannon's writeup...

http://volvo2.homestead.com/240struts.html

 

Thanks goose for the link to Dave's page. I don't know why I never found that in the past. That's exactly what I was looking for. Bubba, I replaced the control arm bushings, so they're looking good.

Anyway guys, what I ended up doing is bringing my car to a shop and threw $400 at them to replace the struts. I was just way to intimidated in spite of my desire to do it myself. One thing though, and I think I remember reading about this in the past, the struts I had put in are the KYB GR2's. I got the spacers for them and replaced the mounts, boots, etc. for a complete job. Since the replacement sometimes there is a "clunk" (I really don't think clunk is the right adjective, but I'm not coming up with a better one.) when I drive over a crack or something in the road. I was on a dirt road this weekend and it seemed to happen a lot. It's as if something is loose in there. I don't know, but it doesn't seem right. Any ideas? I have to bring the car back to the shop for one more thing, but it would be nice to have an idea in my mind before I go.

 

"Clunk" is NOT a good sound to hear after you paid someone $400 to replace front struts!!

Take it back there asap so they can figure out what they left loose...

BTW: if you have an 1/2" impact wrench you don't need the special tool. Like others said, you definitely need a spring compressor though (unless you're trying to get into the Darwin Awards)!!!