Jonnyboy82 0 Posted October 16, 2008 Report Share Posted October 16, 2008 Is there a coilover fitting guide some where on here?Ive had a brief look but cant find anything? :S Link to post Share on other sites
VR6Pete 1,455 Posted October 16, 2008 Report Share Posted October 16, 2008 I think there is in the premium members section.Pete Link to post Share on other sites
Phat VR6 3 Posted October 16, 2008 Report Share Posted October 16, 2008 i did one for IP somewhere on here, no pictures but he said it was very usefull.. ill have a look for it Link to post Share on other sites
Phat VR6 3 Posted October 16, 2008 Report Share Posted October 16, 2008 http://www.vr6oc.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?235187.0#post_236029 There you go dude Link to post Share on other sites
ip 0 Posted October 16, 2008 Report Share Posted October 16, 2008 Phat's guide was good. Once you are down there, it all becomes quite obvious. The only technically tricky bit is reassembling the top of the struts with all the components of the top mounts. Just make sure you take a careful note of how they came off and you should be fine.I'd buy a full set of new nuts and bolts though. The ones that came off my car were utterly ruined and took a huge amount of force to shift. You can get a good set of diagrams on www.vagcat.com that will give you the part numbers for all the required nuts and bolts. It'll cost you an extra £15 or so but is money well worth spending. This is especially true of the top nuts on the front struts which are single use (apparently).After that, you can save yourself a lump of cash by setting your own camber (I don't know how to do tracking). The cowboys at quick-fit will do a tracking for £25 but wanted £75 for tracking and camber. Camber is simply the angle of the front wheels relative to the horizontal. You want 1 degree of negative camber which means the bottom of the wheel sticks out more than the top. The angle can be measured using a home made camber gauge. The guide below describes how to make it (takes ten mins)Get a piece of board (MDF, ply whatever provided it has exaclty 90 degree corners) about 50x30cm. Put a screw in the top middle (about 3cm down from the top but exactly in the middle side-to-side).Draw a line side-to-side across the board exactly 28.5cm down from the screw and mark it at it's mid point (must be exactly below the screw). Now, mark 0.5cm intervals along the line either side of the mid point.Attach a plumb line to the screw. If you work out the maths, each 0.5cm marking describes a 1 degree angle from horizontal. Accuracy starts to roll off after 20 degrees since the length of the opposite line of the triangle becomes comparable to the adjacent (but if you're camber is 20 degress then you're either in trouble or you're might mate Asim).Hold the board against any surface you want to measure and read the angle off the position of the plumb line against the scale.It's good because you can do it on a slightly uneven surface just by measuring the angle of the surface (or car) and subtracting that from your results measured at the wheels.It's a bit tedious and requires a couple of iterations (measure, jack the car, remove the wheel, adjust, attach the wheel, lower, measure.....) but it does mean not giving money to kwik-fit so I think it is worth the hassle. Plus, you know it's been done right.On my car I found that whatever camber I measured with the wheels off and the car jacked up (measuring against the disk) would end up being two degrees more positive than the final camber with the wheels back on and the car on the ground. So, I deliberately set the camber at positive 1 degree with the wheels off and this settled to -1degree when on the ground.With coilovers (I'm using oe shocks and H&R springs) this difference will be less because they tend to be much shorter when fully extended so the wheel hangs less far down when the car is jacked up (less difference in angle of wishbone when jacked up and on the ground). Start out by setting the camber to be dead on 0 degrees when jacked up and wheels off (you can use a spirit level provided the car has been jacked up so that it is perfectly level, I used an axle stand on one side and a trolley jack on the other to level the car out. Never go under the car when you are only using the trolley jack though). This will probably end up at about -1degree when the car is back on the ground. For my tastes anything between -1 and -1.5 degrees is good provided both sides are the same.This all sounds more complex than it is. In all it took me 15 mins to do excluding making the camber gauge and will no doubt save me a fortune over the life of the car.Oh yes, the camber is adjusted simply by loosening the two lower retaining bolts that attach the strut to the hub and positioning the hub at the required angle. Start off fully negative then gradually lever it out more positive by wedging a screwdriver between the strut and the hub.The guy on the tracking machine measured the camber (since he assured me that it was not possible that I had done it correctly myself) and found that I was dead on -1.2 degrees both sides. Perfect.Hope that is useful,ip Link to post Share on other sites
Phat VR6 3 Posted October 16, 2008 Report Share Posted October 16, 2008 I like your idea for the camber gauge I get on well with my tyres fitters, Last time i went i got tracking/ camber/ 2 tyres fitted and fronts swapped to back for £35 haha. Way way over half price as i help them do the work Link to post Share on other sites
ip 0 Posted October 16, 2008 Report Share Posted October 16, 2008 Wait a minute! It's you Jon! Since I actually sold you your coilovers I can say with reasonable confidence that you need to set your camber at exaclty 0 degrees when the car is jacked up and the wheels are off. When back on the ground (and after a day or two to settle) you should find that both sides settle to exactly -1 degree. This is how the guy at the garage taught me to do it when he set them up for me. his method only requires a spirit level since you only need to measure 0 degrees but does mean ensuring the car is perfectly level before measuring. Obviously no adjustment is needed on the back.Cheers, ip. Link to post Share on other sites
Jonnyboy82 0 Posted October 16, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 16, 2008 ip yes its me mate. Finally i got my car back from the bodyshop and i got some time off so im going to attempt doing this with my dad, who's pretty sure this is gonna be a long & shitty job. I have never attempted to do anything like this before so i just wanted to be sure that im not going to cock it up. I just dont know where to start? :S Link to post Share on other sites
ip 0 Posted October 16, 2008 Report Share Posted October 16, 2008 Mate, It's not that bad!!! I just spent three weekends fitting anew pair of wishbones to the front (culminated in having to take it to a garage to have part of the subframe cut out with an oxy torch). Now, that was a long and shitty job!!!!By contrast, when I fitted your shocks to my car I did it on my own in about 6 hours with no experience whatsoever in working on suspension. The only difficult parts were working out the correct fitting of the top mounts and spring plates on the front (which I already did for you) and getting the original lower bolts of the existing front struts. The rest was dead easy.With your dads help you should get this done no bother. Bear in mind you live in sunny englandshire where salty roads are a rarity. Up here in Scotland where temp still drifts below freezing, our cars get annually dowsed in salty water. The bottom of mine looks like a dry roasted peanut!! So, If I could shift the nuts and bolts on mine then you can defo manage yours.As I said before, I'm on the end of the phone.ip Link to post Share on other sites
Jonnyboy82 0 Posted October 16, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 16, 2008 Cool mate thanks for all you help i think im going to attempt it at the weekend all being well that the weather holds out and if the mrs don't want to go shopping. lols :-p Link to post Share on other sites
Jonnyboy82 0 Posted October 17, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2008 Also what is the best lube so they dont seize? Im intending to use copper grease? Link to post Share on other sites
Phat VR6 3 Posted October 17, 2008 Report Share Posted October 17, 2008 yep lots of copper grease or motor bike chain lube, Some people rap them in cling film but i recon its abit ott If im honest ive had my coliovers since i was 18 and ive never protected the treads, 4 years on and there still fine, Tight but i always get them going with some WD My next set ill going to protect them but back when i was young i always rushed lol Link to post Share on other sites
Jonnyboy82 0 Posted October 20, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 20, 2008 Well woke up saturday morning and the sun was out, so with no time to waste cracked on with fitting my coilovers. About 3hrs later job done and i couldnt wait to go take the vr6 out. Well what a difference its like being in a go kart and i cant stop smiling now. I keep finding an excuse to go out for a drive. lols :-p Just a couple of photos to show the difference:Before:After:I will add some more pics when the sun comes out. Link to post Share on other sites
Jonnyboy82 0 Posted October 30, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 30, 2008 I bought my coilovers used and was told they were set up at 40mm but how do you measure to see how low they actually are? Link to post Share on other sites
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