i decided to have the adaptor made by a professional to save some time...here's the final dimensions:
machined from W-1 tool steel, they should have good corrosion resistance and toughness. the larger diameter on the bottom is for the bump stop, and the male threads on top are deliberately long to make assembly easier and will be ground down once installed in the car to prevent them from denting the hood. below are the stubs with the Delrin prototype i made:
the male threads of the damper shafts had to be shortened to fit the stubs, using an angle grinder & 6" bench grinder:
both stubs installed (with red loctite):
since the total length is now 1.25" shorter, i decided to preserve the original spring preload by relocating the lower spring perch the same amount (1.25" lower, i.e. closer to the ball joint). i scribed a line and MIG welded it:
not too pretty, but considering i hadnt used a MIG welder in a couple years and didnt even practice first i think it turned out great. im sure it didnt hurt to be using a quality Lincoln 220V machine, either.
assembly took a while... too many small bits to line up and once again, the coils had to be compressed a whopping 7-9 inches; i thought the spring compressor might break. i dont think i will ever do it this way again, its just too complicated and im not convinced its worth it. finished:
another issue i found was that the aftermarket boots were too short to fully cover everything and the lower opening was also too big to be zip-tied onto the strut body, so for now they are just floating in place. it looks like i could add a second boot in there, maybe tied or glued together, but they were $21 each and i'm broke, so i might have to just leave it. not sure yet...
the next major step was modifying the strut towers to accept the new mount. the newer style needs a larger diameter hole in the body (nearly 1") and a different, asymmetrical bolt pattern. this meant spending some quality time with an angle grinder and a least a couple pep talks in front of a mirror. to make sure the new hole was concentric with the existing one i used the lid from a metal tin of the approximate size held in place with the old strut mount; it sort of snapped into place, centered by the three nuts. since the fit was i little loose, i twisted the mount so it would center on the bolt holes and used a sharpee to mark the line:
grinding that much material was a good hour of messy, sweaty work, but the second one only took 15 minutes or so once i got the hang of it:
getting it to be a tidy circle was tricky with nothing but a bulky 4" angle grinder, but not impossibe:
finally...
i used the old (newer style) mounts as a template for the new bolt pattern after removing its studs:
drilled:
and finally, with strut bolted in:
above is not quite the finished product as i still need to figure out the boot situation and possibly modify the stub, which means disassembling again, but you get the idea.
meanwhile, the ball joints, steering knuckles, and splash guards all get fresh paint. i used boots for a transporter (thanks Always Vdub) on the ball joints... they're a little oversize, but some safety wire fixed that:
before i can get everything back on the car i need to sort out a couple minor issues with the fuel plumbing while the subframe is out, and once of the captured nuts for the subframe mount needs repairing; it was damaged when its bolt was removed. i just hope i dont have to replace it, they're inside a cavity of the body and would need to be cut out, then welded back in place. (!)
