Update!
Its not been my day today either!
Phoned CES motor factors yesterday who promised they could get me the strut mounts today....Brill! Told they would be Lemforder, Febi or Meyle for £25 each......great! Went to pick them up this morning.......some make I had never heard of and just to rub even more salt into the wound, not even the right ones! So that's the car off the road until next weekend, I have ordered lemforder from autodoc in Germany, they have my vin number so they can't get it wrong.....or can they?
kis said:
Any tips? I’m about to do a suspension upgrade too!
1, order parts in good time and when you get the parts google the part number on the box to check it is the correct part, if only I had done that!
2, You will need sockets of 16mm, 18mm and a 21mm plug socket + I think 8mm allen key could be 6 though.
3, 16mm and 21mm spanners.
4, 6" inch socket extension bar, longer extension bar would also be useful.
5, Breaker bar or an electric impact driver, please note do not use an impact driver to tighten the top nut of the shock, you will b*gger the seals, this is on the Bilstein website.
6, Wd40 or penetrating oil for seized nuts, give all the bolts/nuts a liberal spraying and leave to penetrate.....cup o tea time!
7, axle stands and wheel chocks (bricks in my case)
8, Spring compressors
9, Trolley Jack
To start crack the strut top mount bolt with the 21mm plug socket using a spanner on the flats of the socket, you may not need to use the allen key to crack it off but will need to use the allen key when you re-tighten. Take note that on re-assembly the Bilstein nyloc is 22MM! so you can't use the plug spanner on it. I have now ordered new 21mm nylocs, not sure if it is m14 or m16, I think m16, when I went to use my vernier the battery was dead so just ordered both sizes. I don't see why it shouldn't be ok to use the original nuts though.
Don't unwind the top nut just crack it loose and then work in the wheel well. I removed the drop links next and got them out of the way, 16mm socket and spanner.
Take out the pinch bolt holding the bottom of the shock in place.......this is a real Alan B'stard! The housing is cast iron and not Alloy which I read it was on this forum. The bolt will be corroded in place, you will need to use a breaker bar or impact wrench to loosen it.
Undo the top mount nuts (3) but make sure you have a trolley jack under the brake disc or lower arm to take the weight. Lower the trolley jack to free the top of the shock and then angle the brake disc towards you to pull the shock free. Raise the trolley jack.
Next is stripping the shock using the spring compressors. You need to compress 3 rings on one side and 2 on the other, its a devil of a job getting the spring compressors onto 3 rings, I ended up compressing 2 rings and then putting the other compressor right next to it to grab 3, then undoing the first compressor and moving it to the other side. I'll take a couple of pics next weekend to help explain if you get stuck. DO NOT compress just 2 rings there is still tension! If at all unsure take it to a garage they have wall mounted springs compressors and can do this part of the job in a jiffy and probably charge just a few quid, better safe than sorry.
Re-assembly is just the reverse and if fitting lowering springs you only need to compress 2 rings. If you are fitting sachs dampers you may have the problem of trying to pull the damper rod out of the body but not so with Bilsteins as the rod is always pushed out. The top nut is tigthened with the plug socket, allen key and long 21 mm spanner, I held the allen key with the trolley jack handle so I get could get the leverage to tighten the nut.
Good luck, give me a shout if you get stuck.
Liverpool
I usually mess something up whenever I decide to tinker with any car :lol: my latest ones are the headlamp washers failing to work and the battery box bolts snapping off 
North West Surrey