Techno Duck

Wondering for the front Koni struts, is it normally to be able to spin the bottom larger nut freely with a reasonable amount of force with a wrench? When i do this, i see the entire strut shaft is spinning.

I recently took apart most of the front suspension and now when i make low speed tight turns the left spring seems to make slipping or maybe 'popping' sound. The sound is kinda like tapping the spring while its compressed with a wrench or something similar. I do have adjustable spring perches with shorter springs installed. Could it be because i zip-tied the spring to the upper spring perch..?

I had this problem the first time i changed the struts about a year ago, but i cant remember what i did to fix the problem. I believe i simply tightened down the top nut while putting counterforce on the smaller top nut. I tried doing this again...and have it tight enough that my 11mm boxed end wrench is starting to strip the top nut on the Koni...any other ideas on what i can do?

Worse comes to worse, i can wait until monday to have the place im getting a wheel alignment at have a go with it (they are a Porsche specialty shop).

The two things im talking about..



And the reason i pulled everything apart in the first place

aribop

Jon,
Your spring is popping because it is not able to rotate freely like a stock spring. The stock ones fit into the base of the strut and the hats and when you turn the wheel the spring is able to also turn with the strut. The aluminum hats that came with your adjustable ride height kit don't have a place for the spring to seat, neither does the bottom. Using Ground Control or Lindsey Racing camber plates gets rid of the popping spring noise because they use a flat bearing under the plate that the top hat fits into that allows the spring to turn with the strut. Other than upgrading to those camber plates, I saw a thread where you can buy a 2.5" flat bearing to put betwwen the lower perch and the spring that essentially does the same thing as the camber plates. let me see if I can find it...

aribop

Found it. read this thread: https://rennlist.com/forums/944-turbo-and-turbo-s-forum/225883-my-suspension-is-clunking-from-coilovers.html

Techno Duck

Hey Albert, thanks alot. I had the car at my friends place and had it on the lift..indeed it was the spring perch sticking a little when i turned the wheel. I sprayed the upper perch with some lithium grease and it quieted it down, but still clunks a little.

I am defenetley going to order a set of those bearings and swap them in when i go with stiffer springs. Whats really strange is ive run this suspension over a year and never really had the problem..hopefully the problem just goes away like last time! Perhaps its because i have the car lowered about .5 - 1 inch more than where i originally had it.

Is it at all bad or not a good idea to continue to run the suspension like this? Any reason for concern?

aribop

The only concern might be your ball joints if the front end is lowered a lot. Just keep an eye on them and check for wear every so often. You could always get Travis' geometry correcting ball joint kit with the longer pins. I'm thinking of this myself and will eventually do the fix but for now mine are holding fine.

Techno Duck

Hey Albert, part of the reason i took the suspension apart was to do the geometry correcting balljoints actually. Im going to take the strut off again today and see if i can maybe grease up the upper spring perch.

ApexCars

As far as the spinning, yeah its normal. I had the same problem when I did mine recently. It looked like I could grind down an 11mm wrench so that there was no bevel at all on one side and use that to tighten it but since I needed corner balance and alignment anyway, I just had the shop check the torque dor me. If I recall it should be 57 ft/lbs.

Techno Duck

Thanks, i just wanted to be sure about that...seemed a little strange to be able to do it!

I also lubed up the upper spring perch with white lithium grease, this time really rotating the entire thing around to cover everywhere. No more clunking sound!