Hey all,

I was recently involved in an accident that totaled my BB6 SH. I took it to a body shop to get the frame checked out and it appears that in addition to the frame, some suspension components have also been damaged. I now have another Prelude that I picked up last week that has blown struts and was curious about how to check and see if my KYB AGX's from my crashed Prelude would still work.

How would you go about testing the integrity of these struts? I'm assuming that they will need to be removed in order for this to happen, but what process should I utilize to test and see if anything internally was damaged? They LOOK fine, but it's impossible to tell exactly if/where they're damaged internally. Any thoughts? Thanks guys.

 

Midday bump

Can anyone lend some advice?

 

No insurance money to cover new shocks?

 

Check if the shaft is straight. (That's what she said!)
Check the body for straightness.
Verify that the piston can be moved through the full range without issue.
Check for seal leaks.

Then throw em on the car, give it a jounce test, and then a drive test.

Really, without a shock dyno, there isn't really a "for certain" method to verify that they are working properly (that I know of at least).

 

Insurance money went to the replacement lude last Monday. I'm expecting to have to buy new struts at this point, but the ones on my other car had less than 3k on them so I just want some kind of confirmation.

@TunerN00b

Besides the shock dyno, are of these the methods you listed able to be completed with the strut still intact? Or does this mean that it needs to come apart? And just to be sure, when you said body, you meant the body of the strut correct? Thanks for the help guys.

 

Shock intact (not disassembled), but removed from the car.

Body, meaning shock body itself. Small dents generally aren't an issue, but if the impact force curved or otherwise bent the housing, there could be issues internally.

And I was recommending doing all of those, in that order. If there is a better or easier way, I don't know of it.