This is going to sound really stupid. I just received two new assemblies (fully loaded) and I'm just checking them to make sure they're not damaged. I was sort of expecting I could rotate the strut mount by hand since it has a bearing. What I'm finding though as I start to rotate it won't even rotate that much before it starts wanting to pull back. I think if I force it or put a pry bar it will rotate but I haven't gotten this thing to rotate by hand at all.


Is this fine? I'm wondering if it's just one of those things where it's meant to be hard to rotate by hand and it rotates fine when the power steering pushes on it. Kind of surprising because you can usually grab the wheel that's connected to the knuckle that's connected to this and turn that by hand so I thought you could at least spin the mount by hand too with less effort than this. Never ran into a bearing that doesn't spin freely so it's not meshing with my mind.

 

You have not provided any information regarding the car. Accord shock assemblies (coil over spring) do not have a bearing on the top of the strut tower for the cars that you have listed. I have to wonder if you either got the wrong parts OR you have them on the wrong side. Look for a stamp in the metal that says either L or R to confirm.

 

Oh sorry it's for the Civic actually. Thought Accords had the same setup so someone here would know. The top has a spinning strut mount which has a bearing in it.


I actually put a lot of force and got it to spin a little. Hard to get a grip on it though. Now I'm thinking it's probably normal. Probably get better grip on it when it's mounted on the car.

 

That type of bearing which has to move back & forth slowly (not spin at 2500rpm) is not unusual to have pretty stiff seals. Try to spin the ball around on a new lower balljoint as another example.