Wrong bolts from Millway for their camber plates? Need advice

[USSEnterprise]

Originally Posted by dawei213

I received the 10mm socket wrench flex head yesterday and tried to torque the nut down. There isn't enough exposed nut to get leverage unfortunately. I'm afraid to round the top of the strut. I'm going to ask the alignment shop to see what they can do.

Question:

1. Do you fellas remove the aluminum brace before taking to the alignment shop? I take it that it'll be fine driving a short distance without it?

2. I've read a few comments mentioning not to use an impact gun on the strut nut with EDC though I've seen DIY guides on this forum that uses an impact gun to get the nut off. Is the risk of using an impact gun that high?

Definitely would be a bummer if you had to remove the strut brace before getting an alignment - because you have to remove the carbon brace and the aluminum brace, that's a lot of work. That's why I was asking about how much of the adjustment is visible with the brace on. For the NVH downsides associated with GC, that's one area where they shine - its easy to adjust with bracing and everything installed.

But to answer your question, absolutely no problem driving without the bracing. You will be fine.

I wouldn't use an impact on the strut. Did you buy the deep offset box end wrench I linked earlier? That should give you more purchase than a socket?

[dawei213]

Originally Posted by USSEnterprise

Definitely would be a bummer if you had to remove the strut brace before getting an alignment - because you have to remove the carbon brace and the aluminum brace, that's a lot of work. That's why I was asking about how much of the adjustment is visible with the brace on. For the NVH downsides associated with GC, that's one area where they shine - its easy to adjust with bracing and everything installed.

But to answer your question, absolutely no problem driving without the bracing. You will be fine.

I wouldn't use an impact on the strut. Did you buy the deep offset box end wrench I linked earlier? That should give you more purchase than a socket?

Removing the carbon and aluminum brace isn't bad. I think it took me under 10 minutes to remove to two? It's those damn plastic rivets that took longer lol

I did get this 10mm socket wrench. The issue is that there's only about at most 2mm of exposed metal for the socket to grab hold. There's just not enough meat, if you will, to get the proper leverage. I'll give the offset wrench a try though i suspect I'll end up with the same results.

[knightarmor]

I'm gonna say you might have something a bit off on your install. The nut should go down far enough to give plenty of room for the wrench to hold the piston and allow you to torque the nut down using the open sided socket. Do you have the entire threaded portion for the piston protruding through the spherical bearing prior to attempting to install the nut?

I used the impact gun on my first go round when installing the MPHAS. You only need to know when to stop which if you have plenty of experience you'll know. You can also grab the piston with your hand/fingers and know exactly when the piston begins to rotate (that means stop!).

When I installed the Millways I used the open sided socket without issue to torque everything down properly.

[dawei213]

Originally Posted by knightarmor

I'm gonna say you might have something a bit off on your install. The nut should go down far enough to give plenty of room for the wrench to hold the piston and allow you to torque the nut down using the open sided socket. Do you have the entire threaded portion for the piston protruding through the spherical bearing prior to attempting to install the nut?

I used the impact gun on my first go round when installing the MPHAS. You only need to know when to stop which if you have plenty of experience you'll know. You can also grab the piston with your hand/fingers and know exactly when the piston begins to rotate (that means stop!).

When I installed the Millways I used the open sided socket without issue to torque everything down properly.

I'm not sure if you saw my other posts but I accidentally ordered the uniball version and not the street version of the camber plates. As you can see from the attachment, the top of the uniball sits much higher than the top of the polyurethane bushing. Millway confirmed my install looks correct.

I do see a good amount of thread but even when I tried jacking up the suspension more, it won't go any further.

[knightarmor]

Originally Posted by dawei213

I'm not sure if you saw my other posts but I accidentally ordered the uniball version and not the street version of the camber plates. As you can see from the attachment, the top of the uniball sits much higher than the top of the polyurethane bushing. Millway confirmed my install looks correct.

I do see a good amount of thread but even when I tried jacking up the suspension more, it won't go any further.

Ah yes I did see you got the spherical mount but forgot about the loss of threads when switching to this type of setup. That does suck as the nut doesn't get to do what it was actually designed to do ("lock" in place).

[dawei213]

With my current adjustment (not aligned yet), the EDC sensor cap can't sit flush. Even with less negative camber, I still don't think there's enough space for that cap to sit flush. First picture shows what it looks like now. Sitting at an angle and with everything back on, lateral movement has loosen the sensor and caused a Chassis system malfunction. Re-seating it resolves it. Currently I moved that EDC sensor cap to sit outside of the rubber boot that covers the strut tower. Any major concerns having it sit outside like the second picture? That strut tower rubber boot cover can now sit flush unlike with the sensor cap that was skewed when it was on the inside.