Strut repairs, For the guys trying to keep a factory six original. Options

[ClayPerrine]

Recently, I found the left front strut on Elwood clunking when I moved it. Seems the ball joint was moving in the bottom of the strut. The ball joint setup is the pinch type, and it is too damaged to repair. I wanted to keep it stock. So I talked with the machinist that is helping with the adapter plate for the 4.0. I suggested a sleeve, but that wouldn't leave enough structure on the ball joint. We came up with the idea of replacing the casting in the bottom of the strut with a later wedge pin type strut. Porsche put them on starting in 72 for safety reasons.

So I gave him the two 914-6 struts, and two /4 struts with the wedge type ball joint connections. He was able to remove the ball joint mount from the /4 struts, and put them into the /6 struts. He told me that to remove the old bottoms from the /6 struts, he had to set them up in the lathe and turn them as slowly as possible, and the 4k lb lathe started to hop anyway.

The welds looked factory when done, and now Elwood has the updated, safer ball joints in him.

So if you find yourself in the same situation, contact Zims Autotechnic at 817-267-4451 and they can fix your factory /6 struts up to use the wedge type ball joints.

Sorry for no pictures, mine would have looked just like ball joint replacement picts.
Maybe my machinist (he is a member here) can throw some pictures up.