Worked on wife's 88 last weekend replacing strut mounts. Although I was suspicious of what seemed to be a pretty low torque value, I tightened the top nut to Bentley listed torque spec of 15 ft lbs using the stupid IPD strut tool. This was even after I had been advised by my Dad, who's been working on these cars for 25 years, to tighten the nut with an impact wrench. At any rate, I used 15 ft lbs and everything seemed fine afterwards- smooth steering, no clunks. Last night I drove the car and noticed a lot of clunking noise from the front end, which was not present when I reassembled the struts last weekend (of course, my wife did not notice this while driving all week). Spring seats on both struts were loose and with enough play you could physically move them back and forth by grabbing the spring and pulling! Hmm- could Bentley be wrong? Pulled an old Chilton manual off the shelf and rechecked the torque spec on top nut- CHILTON SPECIFIES 90-100 ft lbs! Thats a lot more than 15 ft lbs, and would generally require use of your trusty impact wrench (which I had been advised to use). There's no way to get that with the cheapo IPD tool.

At any rate, I will tighten them up this morning (once everyone's up and I can run my compressor)- I suspect this will fix the problem!

--
'92 240 wagon, 268k, '88 240 sedan 280k

I took a look at the Volvo green manual on front suspension and didn't see any torque value for the top strut nut. It looks like Bentley might have mixed up the 15 ftlbs from the strut mount.

Bentley has several misprints and some bad info. (the worst is warning that the B230 is an interference type engine) The 15ftlbs is refering to the 3 small strut mount nuts that hold the mount to the body.

Two places to look for clunking source in recently installed struts:

Having the re-tighten the actual strut tower nut... the big one... is not unusual, even if an impact wrench is used.

The other thing that happens is that sometimes you don't seat the insert all the way down in the strut tube when assembling...putting the weight of the car in it and drving a bit will then seat it all the way down. This now leaves a bit of play where the strut is held in the tube by the Gland Nut...you will need to tighten the gland nut a turn or so.


Why oh why don't they make 240s anymore :(
75 245(RIP), 80 244 M45 226K, 87 245 M47 172K

hello andy,

you found a very important point. i replaced the struts & strut mounts about 2 years ago, and since then it always made a popping sound as if the spring might be loose.

i followed bentley when i installed the stuff. my 92 245 has a similar loose sound traveling over tight, bumpy roads. it probably needs tightening also.

i'm pretty shocked.

i can't remember but do you have to do the following?
1) compress the springs,
2) tighten the nut with a counter hold tool, to 90-100 ft lbs
3) remove the spring compressors.
4) will i need to loosen the 3 strut mount bolts (each side) to do this?

i just had the front end alignment done after putting on a rebuilt rack.

i hope i won't have to take the struts out.

good observation.

regards,
byron golden
86 245
92 245

Compressing the spring is only required when the strut assemblies are on the workbench. The springs are naturally compressed when they are carrying the weight of the car.

You should not loosen the three strut top mounting nuts, so the alignment will not be affected.

thanks bryan,

yep, pretty straightforward having the springs compress with the front end sitting on them.

after reading the post, i tried to tighten the strut nut earlier today, their pretty tight. i'll need a cheater to hold the hex wrench when i turn the torque wrench then.

i couldn't tightent to 90 ft lbs because the bilsteins started turning--hex wrench too short.
i think remember i had tightened them more than 15 ft lbs because after following bentley, i noticed the darn nut wasn't hardly even tight. so i must have tightened them maybe to 60 ft lbs or so.

regards,
byron

Haynes refers to this as a "Strut piston rod nut" and the torque figure they give for a 740 is 111 ft.-lbs. (don't have a 240 manual handy) so I would be inclined to believe the Chilton figure.

When I did the struts on my 740, one of the nuts worked loose after a couple of weeks, causeing clunking. I retightened both of them as tight as I could get them, and have had no further problems.

Torquing them accurately is difficult, as the big nut has to be tightened with a box end wrench while holding the shaft from turning with a 10mm open end (or a good quality large adjustable) wrench on the flats at the top of the shaft. It can't be done with a torque wrench and a socket.