Quote:
Originally Posted by Windex
Well I've began putting it in but need to get a shop to fit the struts to the springs (I ran out of courage with my spring compressors).
I trial fitted the Murchison spacers which definitely does not leave much thread engagement on the nuts at the top!
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I have been running those Murchison strut spacers for over 6 months now with no issues. I was a bit concerned about the reduction in thread take-up myself, but after researching it, I was happy to leave them in as-is.
Legality aside (I have no idea what the rules state), I don't see much risk in running these spacers. Whilst the thread take-up is less, there is still plenty of meat for the nut there - I tightened mine with my impact gun and they definitely nip up tight! But the main thing that swayed me was after thinking about the function that they perform. The struts are nearly always pre-loaded with the car's weight forcing them up into the strut towers. The only way that the threads could fail catastrophically is if the struts were forced past their maximum (unladen) extension point, which I believe is technically impossible when the bottom of the strut is connected to the LCA and the steering knuckle is connected to the UCA due to the geometry and binding. Have a go at trying to pull the LCA down to over-extend the strut the next time you have a front wheel in the air - the steering knuckle contacting the lower spring perch will prevent this.
I think the only time that these threads could fail would be a situation where the LCA or UCA either break, or are forced out of their normal range of motion by a collision or similar, which in that case the struts popping out would be the least of your worries!!