Tighten strut nut without shaft spinning?

[BFIFE22]

Has anyone had any experience tightening a strut nut that doesn’t have an allen key opening at the top? Most I’ve seen either have a slot or an Allen key opening, but this set a friend of mine bought for his car has nothing like that, it’s essentially a 6 point bolt head. The problem is it’s basically impossible to hold that still and also use a torque wrench for the actual nut.

[ls1ac]

Use a crow foot on the torque wrench, read how to compensate for offset.

[Grady]

Impact, low setting listen for when it snugs down you do not want to bank on it and overtouqe it.

[BFIFE22]

Originally Posted by ls1ac

Use a crow foot on the torque wrench, read how to compensate for offset.

Thank you for the advice! This would've worked perfect, however VW/Audi top nuts go into a recessed area where the crow foot won't grip it. They have to make it more complicated as usual. Makes you appreciate how simple the BRZ is to work on. I tried asking for help on a VW forum before here, but you have to wait a certain amount of time after creating an account before you can post.

Going to harbor freight tomorrow, hoping to find a pass through wrench that will allow a 10mm deep socket to pass though, and we should be good if so!

[cjd]

Pass through is the ticket. I think the set I have is by GearWrench.

[maslin]

Strut nut socket and an open end wrench on the shaft.

Special strut tools are nice to have around, although rarely used.

[BFIFE22]

Turns out a 7/8" O2 sensor socket fits around the 22mm nut and has an opening to pass through a 1/4" drive extension which allows me to grip the top of the shaft.

Thank you for the ideas everyone!