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!

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