Well, after about six hours, several gouges out of my hands, and an
infinity of curse words later, I have exchanged my Miata's worn out
(at 40k miles :-P ) Tokico Illuminas for Koni yellows. I like the
shocks but the instructions should be wodded up and tossed in the
trash before beginning work.
Koni recommend using a drill to enlarge the 10mm hole in the dust boot
and upper shock mount to 12mm to accommodate the larger piston rod. A
drill bit is utterly, miserably useless for this job! It jumps around
and makes an elliptical sort of hole, and generates so much heat that
I trashed an expensive dust boot by melting it off its metal washer.
Grrr! I stomped off to Home Depot and grumbled at the power tool guy,
who politely suggested a 1/2" rasp would do the trick. Problem
solved...the other three came out perfect. (A garden sprayer is also
handy to keep the metal cool as you work it.) Figured I'd pass this
tip along for the next poor sod who decides to attempt this job on
his/her Miata.
Changing shocks on a Miata is soooo much fun. I wish I could spend
all my Saturday nights this way...
Cheers,
Craig Blome
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