It's all in the club wiki: Rebuilding Struts.

The factory manual is copyrighted, so there is no copy of it in the Wiki. Perhaps if you write to Nissan they will give us permission to reproduce it on the site.

I would say the torque specification is very important. If you torque it too tight, you run the risk of breaking something. If you tighten it too loosely, who knows what will happen.

I got it all together and working correctly. The piece of information I was missing was that I had to bleed the air from the shock. It's described in the Datsun service manual (can anyone point to a download of this?.. all the links I've found are broken). A Nissan parts guy read it to me over the phone.

To bleed the shock, after the oil is put in and every assembled, pull the rod out fully with the shock vertical and the axle at the bottom. Then turn the shock upside down and push the rod fully in. Repeat this several times until the resistance on the rod feels consistant.

I also found that when making long continuous pulls or pushed on the shock, there was little resistance. But if you make several quick and short push pulls, the stiffness appears.

And... for general info. Tokico shocks take 265cc of oil, Atsugi take 280cc. And the gland nut torque is 57-79.5 ft-lbs... so I wouldn't say the torque on the gland nut is all that critical.

Ok.. I just got a call back from my local Nissan parts guy. The gland packing and the shock kit are special order from Japan. He told me there is a part number on the strut just under the spring perch, but of all the struts I have, I can't find that stamp... only what looks like the reminants of a paper price tag sticker. So I'm still stuck.

Can the gland packing really only be used once? These shocks that I'm working with seemed to work fine before before I took them apart.

What is the gland packing torque? How much oil goes in (clymer says approx 230cc)? Are there any special assembly instructions? Unfortunately, I'm going to have to reassemble this with the old parts... I can't wait the 3 weeks for the new parts to arrive from Japan.

Here's a question... how can I tell if I have Atsugi or Tokico shocks? I looked all over for a stamp on all the parts and couldn't find anything. Or is it just a matter of preference?

Your local Nissan dealer can order any Datsun part still available for US market. Here are the part numbers ... please let us know if they are available or NLA: Club Wiki - Struts.


Yes, it is critical to torque it correctly. But you don't need a special wrench. You can apply a carefully measured force with a pipe wrench. Even if you fit Inserts, they need to be corrected torqued.

I wanted to just swap the bottom tube and rod. I'm afraid the Nissan dealers here won't have any 1200 parts. Mine is the only one I ever see on the road.

How critical is torquing the grand packing nut to the specified amount? Should I buy a big socket?

I have the clymer manual... the instructions go as far as telling you how to remove the strut and then say take it to a dealer to rebuild it.

Thanks for the response ddgonzal.

To "rebuild" the strut, you need *new* parts. The the rebuild kit will have full instructions. You need to carefully measure the correct amount of the appropriate strut fluid. It will seem to soft or too hard if the wrong amount is put in.

Are you trying to rebuild it, or just swap used parts from one strut to another? If the latter, you still need a new gland packing, O-ring and damping oil.

The Datsun 1200 repair manual gives full instructions, what parts to grease, how much oil to use (depending on which brand of strut used -- there were two: Atsugi and Tokico). It also shows the order all the parts go on etc and how much to torque the gland packing nut.

I wouldn't attempt this without the full instructions.

Our local public library has Clymer, Chilton, Drake and Haynes manual for Datsun 1200. At least some of these have the strut instructions as well.

They're stock 1200 struts... forgot to mention that. Tomorrow I'll call up nissan and see if they have replacement cartriges, but I quite doubtful they will.

I'm in the middle of rebuilding one of my struts that had it's axle bent when this jerk in a mustang understeered into my front wheel. He really was a jerk.

Anyways, I have a couple of spare struts that my using and rebuilding, but my problem is that when I put everything together, the shocks seem really soft. I'm sure i'm doing something wrong.

My manual doesn't explain the process at all, but I do remember something about turning the shock upside down after putting the oil in and pumping the shock... I think I remember reading that from a different manual that I don't have with me.

I need some help! I'm at my parents doing the work and will eventually need to get home.