Front Coil Overs

[Guest Fred2b]

I have been trying to adjust the front coil overs to make the ride a bit firmer. I have the kit supplied ones with green springs. At the moment both are at the weakest setting with the big nuts right at the bottom. The offside one seems to adjust by turning up the nut and then the locknut. The nearside one will not adjust because the threaded bit turns as well. Is it knackered? or am I doing something wrong?

Fred

[niduncan]

Hi Fred,

 

If your shocks look like these (series III) then you need to grip the inner tube through the spring with a pair of vise grips to stop it turning. You can then screw up the first nut to tension the spring. I have mine set firm as it gives greater sump clearance.

 

Nigel.

[Guest Russler]

I had the same problem with mine, they worked fine for a year. But then I decided to go for a bit of adjustment and the bl**dy things kept spinning. So I took them off to see what was wrong, but in the end I didn't even bother because the shocks were completely knackered anyway. I could expand the shock and then give it a tap on the end and it would close up again with hardly any resistance. I binned them and bought a pair of spax shockers and never looked back since. I can now play with spring rates as well a damper rates.

[Big Jim]

what you have are a pair of dampers, with a threaded tube over the top of the body for the adjustment nuts (ie bottom spring mount) to run on, so you need to hold this tube and stop it turning when adjusting the nuts.

[Longboarder]

Fred, altering the position of the nuts on the shocks changes the ride height only. To firm up the suspension you need to look at changing to higher rated springs or to better (preferably adjustable) coilover dampers such as Spax or AVO. I would go for dampers first and the handling will be transformed.

 

Nigel