Dear brickboard-I picked up my mothers 1990 244DL over Christmas to put some struts/shocks on the car, as well as tend to other maintenance items on a mostly neglected 194K car. Noticed around thanksgiving time when I did her front brakes that the strut "nuts" appeared to be backing out of the strut tubes. I got into the car tonight, put the new Boge Turbo gas struts in and to my surprise, the strut nut did not bottomed out against the strut tube just as before. The end effect when viewed from the side is that the nut still has 3-4 threads to go before "home". Everything tightens down fine, I am a little leary of leaving these threads exposed...I pulled a strut tube from a 1982 car, and the same insert threads all the way down and tightens up nicely. Looking into the bottom of the strut tube,just above the ball joint bolts in, the 1990 appears thicker and of a different shape then the one from the 1982 car. My SAVE (supplier) catalog (I work in a independent Saab shop) lists the same struts for 1975-1993, regardless of manufacturer (Bilstein, Boge, etc). Did Volvo use a shorter shock on later cars, that after market does not support? Is it ok to leave the threads exposed at the top? I had applied some lock-tite (Blue 242) to the threads, and it tightened up nicely, am i just parnoid? Please cc: this to me at boostedbrick@hotmail.com. I would like to get this figured out ASAP, so am not blocking the shop and I can get back to working on slaabs...;)

Thank you!

Jeff
1982 245 GLT Project car
1986 244 DL autocross/daily driver