How to Replace Rear Struts 2006-11 Toyota Camry

Hi, I’m Mike from 1A Auto. We’ve been selling auto parts for over 30 years!

Use a pry bar or a large flat bladed screwdriver to remove the hubcap. I'm just going to slide it under the edge. Put that aside. Take a breaker bar and the 21 millimeter socket, and loosen the lug nuts while the car is still on the ground. I'm just going to use the socket to take them off. Removing the last lug nut, I'm just going to hold onto the wheel so it doesn't fall off. I'll take it right off.

There are two hooks holding down the rear seat cushion. They're hard to see. There's one right down here where my index finger is. Try to pull up on it. It's pretty stiff. Let's take this pry bar and very carefully place it right next to the hook and the pop it up. Then you repeat this for the other side. Then you lift the back seat cushion out and just place it aside.

On this Camry with the split fold rear seats we'll need to lower the passenger side seat, so we're going to pull the release that's inside the trunk. We have to fold the seat down.

Before we can remove the side bolster we need to pop the seatbelt out of it. It's got a little slot in here. Feed the seatbelt up through there and to the side. Down under here there's a 12 millimeter bolt that needs to be removed. Then this can be lifted outwards and up off the pin that it sits on. Lift it out a little bit. At the same time I'm going to slide it up so this sits in your middle tab here. You don't want to pull it this way because you'll break this. It's just going to gently come up, and then slide it out.

This side bolster out, you can see the three studs on the top of the strut. Now that we have access to that, we can go on the outside of the car and start removing the strut. You're replacing the strut. You should have the sway bar link on hand because it's very easy to damage when you're taking it off, especially when they're rusty. You can get brand new sway bar links from 1aauto.com. You need to remove the sway bar link from the strut.

In a perfect world, this wouldn't be too rusty and it should come off easy, but this looks pretty rusty. You're going to spray some rust penetrant on here. Take a wire brush. Try to knock off some of the rust. This will ideally help the nut turn. 14 millimeter box wrench and our five millimeter Allen key. Fit it in there. Try to kind of hold these as I remove it. Can see some rusty bits coming loose. Let's spray some more rust penetrant. Try to brush it off, just to help and to help this nut spin off of this ball joint part of the sway bar link.

These are typically locking nuts, so the opening in them is kind of an oval shape. Makes it difficult to spin it off. I almost had it. It stripped. This is typically what will happen. It will kind of start to move on you and then it just strips out the Allen key because they're so difficult to remove. The next step you get some locking pliers, put it back here, hold the little part that's exposed to keep it from spinning and keep taking the nut off. Get it loose. I can take it off with my fingers. Just pull this out. Place that aside.

There are two bolts here on the strut. One is holding the brake line on—it's a 12 millimeter. One is holding the ABS line on. This is a 10 millimeter. I'm going to spray some rust penetrant to the backside of these bolts. I'm going to start by removing the brake line. Spray a little bit in here. Use a 12 millimeter socket. Put that aside.

Switch to a 10 millimeter socket for this bolt. Put this aside over here. The strut is mounted to the knuckle. These two large bolts in here: one down here, one up here, our 19 millimeter nuts and 19 millimeter bolt heads. I'm going to spray rust penetrant on them before I try to remove them. Use a 19 millimeter socket and a large ratchet or a breaker bar. If you have a large ratchet, might give you a little more space to work with. I can kind of hold it with this 19 millimeter wrench.

Going to remove this nut. Repeat this for the lower one. It may be easier to go from underneath. Now I've broken it free. I'm going to switch to an extension and a smaller ratchet so I can move it more freely. Still need to kind of hold the bolt with the box wrench. Got pretty loose. I'm just going to remove it with my hand. Just a small hammer to tap it out. Get this top one started. Need too you should be able to pick up on this a little bit. Push in the knuckle, wiggle it around, and pull the bolts out. Leave this upper strut bolt in place.

Now I'm going to go up inside the car and remove the bolts that are holding on the studs. Once this is loose up top, I can remove this lower bolt, and the whole strut assembly should slide out from the wheel well. Back inside the car, there are three nuts on top of these studs that need to be removed so we can lower the strut out of the body. One's over here, there's one here, and then one in the back. It's hard to see. It's behind this one. These are 12 millimeter. I'm going to use the deep socket, loosen them up. The strut might actually start to lower as you loosen this nut off. It actually just slid loose and came down. All right, the strut is loose from the top of the car in the body. I left this bolt in here so the strut wouldn't fall out when I ended the bolts. I'm going to pick up on the strut, ready this out, to get the strut loose. There, the bolt finally came out. The strut is off of the knuckle. Pick it up. Pull it right out of it wheel well.

Here's our original strut assembly. Here's our brand new one from 1aauto.com. It's a complete assembly. No need to decompress the spring.

Install a new spring, or a mount or a bump stop or boot. It's already assembled and ready to go. This matches up to our original one perfectly. It’s got the same type of mount for the strut, the same mounts for the brake line and the ABS line, same mount for the sway bar link, and the same three studs on the top. There's a warning label here. Don't remove this center nut because you'll undo the tension on the spring. You don't need to touch that. You can just take off these nuts to install it, and this should get you back on the road and riding nice.

Install the strut into the wheel opening, and push up on the knuckle. Put the top bolt in. I'm going to actually take this and just tap it in a bit. Capture our nut so it doesn't come out. Now remove the punch. Capture the lower bolt. I need to use the punch to line it up. Just put it in like about halfway and wiggle the strut around. Just got to take the punch again, put it ahead of the bolt and tap it in, and capture that nut. Now it's time to go back up inside the car, push this strut into place and capture the nuts up top.

I'm going to reuse the original nuts because they're in good shape, but we need to get the studs on the strut up through the holes that are in the body here. I have to reach out underneath to get them up through the holes. I'm going to my capture at least one of them. Now I can snug these up evenly to pull them up into the body. Once they get snug, I'll stop. I'll come back and torque them afterwards. I torque these top bolts to 29 foot-pounds. I torque the top and bottom strut mounting bolts to 133 foot-pounds. Just taking up some of the slack by threading this down before I torque it. Same thing in the bottom. With the slack taken up I can counter hold the bolt. Use your torque wrench, torque this to 133 foot-pounds. Repeat the same for the other bolt.

If you bend this shield, just bend it back. Install the ABS sensor bracket. It's a really small little bolt so I'm just going to thread it in. When it gets tight I will stop. Reinstall the brake hose. Goes in place here. Get it started. Until I get tight I'm just going to stop. Reinstall the original sway bar link or a brand new one. Now torque these to 29 foot-pounds. Make sure it doesn't get caught on this trim here, this piece on this trim. I was holding it up. Slide it underneath it. It should line up nice with the bolt hole underneath.

To install the side bolster and put this tab up into the body. Pull the seatbelts out of the way, then slide this up. Kind of see from behind where the tab needs to go. Make sure it doesn't get caught on this trim here, this piece on this trim that was holding it up. Slide it underneath it. It should line up nice with the bolt hole underneath.

Install the side bolster. This part slides down into the back over here of the sheet metal. This bolts into the bottom part here. Watch out you don't grab the seatbelts and kind of just see behind it on this side. Push in. Line up down the bottom.

Now we can lift up these seats to install the lower seat. You want to make sure you don't lose your seatbelt buckles. You can buckle them into the upper seat belts. These are going to go up underneath the back seat. I'm just going to slide it in like this. I'm going to push it forward and push it down into the locks. Repeat that for the other side. Unbuckle your seat belts. Move them lower where they belong. Your seat is reinstalled.

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