Just thought I would share this for some info, My front left shock was leaking oil and the car was drifting to the left. Thought I would look into the problem, rang around and got quotes ranging from $450 - $600. I found this website http://martybugs.net/magna/kyb.cgi, which gave me a bit of an idea what I was going to have to do.

I went to Pick and Payless at Blacktown, now I do not have much mechanical knowledge at all but being able to look at about 40+ Magnas with all their wheels off etc gave me the ability to attempt to remove the front struts without being worried about any permanent damage to my vehicle. I do not have any spring compressors so was looking at a complete front strut including spring.

After having a hunt around I managed to find a set of Munroe GT Gas struts from a KJ Magna (it did not have ABS but the strut had the bracket already on it) they charged me $90 for the pair. Now I know that these are not the most well liked shocks but they were certainly better than the originals I had on mine also all the other Magnas appeared to have original struts etc.. At least with these I knew they had been changed at some time in the cars life.

So I went through the following steps (I should have taken pictures and was going to, I remembered while I was putting the wheels back on LOL)

1. Loosened wheel nuts while car on ground
2. Jacked up each side and supported car on stands
3. Removed wheels
The following steps were done one side at a time
4. Loosened 3 x nuts holding struts to frame of car (nuts in the engine bay)
5. Removed nut holding ABS Sensor to strut
6. Removed clip that holds brake line to strut (these were a bit of a bugger to get off, I ended up using locking pliers)
7. Proceeded to remove upper and lower bolts connecting strut to steering arm (these were very tight, I use a 17mm spanner to hold the top of the nut in place, braced against the frame of the car and a ratchet on the nut)
8. Moved steering arm down and out of the way as much as possible
9. With my left (or right depending on the side of the vehicle) hand I supported the strut while removing the three nuts in the engine bay
10. Once nuts are removed I took the strut out of the wheel arch and off to one side
11. Replacing is the reverse of above (I tightened the three nuts all the way before replacing every thing else, not sure if that is the right way but it seemed to work ok)

Problems
1. The weight of the strut as you remove the last bolt can drop the strut down onto the rubber boot for the steering
2. A Second pair of hands is needed to support the strut while aligning the bolts to the three holes
3. Towards the end I found I had trouble lifting the steering arm into place to insert the two bolts that hold it all together, I used my cars jack with an old towel on top of it and jacked up the disc to keep it in line.
4. The two bolts holding the steering arm to the strut were very tight, as above I had to use a 17mm spanner to hold the bolt in place while using a ratchet spanner on the nut (one of the bolts was on so tight I used the ratchet to hold the bolt in place and the spanner on the nut and had to whack it with a rubber mallet)

After job was complete I drove around an industrial estate near where I live and weaved the car form left to right at about 40kph just to listen for any odd noises etc. I then got onto the M4 and headed to St Marys which allowed me to get up to 110kph and all seemed ok.

So, I don't have a lot of tools or skills in this particular area and I am on a tight budget so this was the best option for me, it seems to have gone ok, wheel alignment seems fine but I got one three days ago anyway so I will keep an eye on that.

Total time for job was about 3 hours say 1.5 hours per wheel.

Sorry for the length of the post etc, or if this has been covered before, but I wanted to share this as I am by no means a mechanic or anything like that and I was able to the job with not too much stuffing around :)

I did the same job on my TJ VR-X a few weekends ago, except i replaced the springs as well. First time I had done struts. Took about the same time as you did. Found it quite simple actually.

Thanks for the write-up and good on you for giving it a bash, its how we all learn! I never really thought about replacing the spring and strut as a set, it would certainly cut the time and complication factors down.

Just to let you know as well, at the wreckers I removed a strut from a KF Verada (the only one in the yard) and matched the Munroe ones up by eye, just to make sure it wasn't lowered or anything like that. The first original strut I removed at home I did the same thing just lined them up on the floor to make sure they were the same size. Very Technical I know!!!!!!

Wow I wish I had this write up 3 months ago. I am hopeless at suspension

It may pay to also do a check on wheel alignment just to be sure.