═══════════Frequently Asked Question═══════════

Author: SelfMade

The design of the lower mount for the front struts I observed on the website oldschool-cars.ru, where a translation of an original article from some foreign forum was posted. After careful consideration and with what I believe to be more sensible modifications, it resulted in a high-quality product that is the result of my collaborative effort with my father-in-law. To avoid damaging the factory part - specifically, the lower mount for the front struts that attaches to the steering knuckle on the Silvia - I had special transition cups made using a lathe operated by Viktor Mikhailovich at my organization. These cups screw onto the front strut.

Next, we disassemble the standard struts from a Mark and remove the shock absorber cartridges. Taking the front struts, we cut off the tube from the hub. However, it's necessary to leave about 3 cm of the tube since there is an enlargement afterward that won’t accommodate our transition cup.

Then in the resulting part, you need to increase the central hole by 1 mm using swaging with a reamer to ensure that the upper mount from the Silvia strut fits without any issues. Also on the upper mounts for the rear struts of the Silvia, we have two bolts for which we mark and drill two holes, then assemble the new upper mount.

Next, we put our transition cup onto the remaining part of the hub and weld everything around, but here you need to be very careful and maintain perfect coaxiality between the old tube and the new cup or else your alignment will go awry! For this, from a cut-off piece of standard strut tube, we cut out a ring 6 mm high and cut it into three segments that resemble half-moons. During installation on the remaining 3 cm section of tube on the hub, between these you get gaps for the welds to grip the transition cup. Then carefully align them in height through grinding, put the transition cup onto the remaining tube segment with these half-moon pieces under the lower edge as spacers so that they produce gaps for the welds. In this way, we bring the planes of the tube and our transition cup on the hub to zero parallelism. To prevent the transition cup from moving around on the tube, wrap the tube with paper tape; it will burn during welding. Then spot-weld three points between the cup and the tube and weld the part fully using high current for a finished boot!

Then we tack weld the brake hose mounting brackets after marking their location, clean everything up, and paint it. We screw on the lower mounts to the front struts, and we are done with the front end!

Now some details about the rear struts. The fact is that the upper mounts and attachment points for the body of the 81 model are entirely different, as well as having differences in the lower bushing. After disassembling the standard rear struts, we take the top mounts and split them into two halves by drilling out 9 points of factory welding to result in a flat top part with three bolts that attach to the body.


Then in the resulting part, you need to increase the central hole by 1 mm using swaging with a reamer so that the upper mount from the Silvia strut fits without any problems. Also on the upper mounts for the rear struts of the Silvia, we have two bolts for which we mark and drill two holes, then assemble the new upper mount.

Now some words about the lower mounting point. The diameter of the bushing and the hole for the bolt on the Silvia coilovers is slightly larger than that of the 81 model, so they won’t fit onto the rear knuckle. To solve this problem, we take the standard bushes from the rear struts and burn out their inserts where the mounting bolt goes.

Next, you need to turn them at a lathe, i.e., remove about 2 mm from the external diameter so that they can freely enter into the Silvia’s bushing insert. Also on Silvia’s bushes these inserts are not symmetrical relative to the bush itself; i.e., one side of the insert protrudes more than the other. We cut off the protruding part with a rotary tool, so that it looks like the opposite side and order special rings which we press onto the 81 model bushing and align them flush with the Silvia’s bushing insert. This results in such a bushing.

Next, assemble everything together, and we have a complete set for installation on an 81 Mark)))

Thanks for your attention, later I will write about the installation process which also has its own peculiarities.

P.S. Forgot to mention that small holes must be made in the resulting lower mounts of the front struts for air venting, because when you screw in the strut, air pressure builds up inside the cup; if it has no place to escape, then you simply can’t screw in the strut!