20 replies to this topic

[Wil_h]

Pressurised dampers will affect the ride height. But I concede that the stactic caster could be affected by the change in ride height.

[mattw13]

Ok so I spent the day playing in the rain- I changed the suspension cone on the passenger side and added a Hi-Lo. The original cone was so shot that it did not require compressing in order to remove the upper arm!! I stripped and re-greased the upper arm and put a new rebound buffer on, as well as changing the damper. The suspension seems a lot better and the weight of the car is now acting on the upper arm when the car is at rest. I have got to do the other side tommorrow.

However, When I removed the top ball joint and track rod end, the drive shaft fell out!! There was no resistance at all and the offset sphere joint gaitor was not attached (i.e. no tie). I removed the drive shaft and cleaned the joint and the housing. The ball bearings all appeared to be in good condition and the joint did not appear to have any metal shavings in the there when I cleaned it.

My new question is

Should there be resistance or a circlip etc..? Could this possible explain why it felt like there was loss of traction? There did not appear to be a huge amount of play in the joint but there was some. Sorry I am new to all of this.

Cheers Matt

[tadleysimon]

ive always fount tat the driveshaft comes out of the pot joint quite easily unless its still got its factory fitted clip. most people just use large zip ties and thats what i would do if i was you.

make sure you grease it up first with the proper grease

and i dought that would cause any loss of traction since you said it was in good condition

[The_Mistro]

Shocks do not affect the ride height - even gas pressurised ones will not have enough force in them to alter the spring rate enough to give a perceivable change in ride height

hmm - have seen it before with a mini fitted with 'gas-a-justs'.. they were quite strong and certainly did lift the car...

thats what they were, i thought it was just the cones (as they were quite new at the time) not settling back down after being jacked up, drove it 80 miles it was still on stilts, it certainly does affect the ride height!

[The_Mistro]

Pressurised dampers will affect the ride height. But I concede that the stactic caster could be affected by the change in ride height.

fair enough, you know more about it than me, that was what somebody else said to me at a show when i said about it being very "skittish"

[mattw13]

Thanks for all your help!

Has anyone else had a cone so squashed? I could remove the cone and trumpet with the arm without using the compression tool (which was fortunate as the thread on the cone was soo rusty that I could not get it to bite)!!

Cheers
Matt