Christopher Zach

Busy day. As I am looking at taking the 928S to the track next month I figured it was time to finally get the front end de-lowered. The PO lowered it a *lot* and although it was pretty cool looking it would scrape the bottom of the driver's spoiler in hard turns.

Measuring the car on a flat surface I found that the heights were 140mm front and 153mm rear. I wanted to get it somewhat to stock, so I decided on 170mm front and 163 rear. Which according to the mighty calculator is six turns tighten on the front and 3.5 turns on the rear.
Front coils were not too bad, pulled the tire and used a genuine 928 coil wrench, lots of PB blaster, and a 4 pound setting maul to get things moving. Got to the point where I could just turn it with the wrench and got the front up six turns. Back was a different story: Because of the location of the rear trim I really couldn't hit it with the hammer and no amount of back and forth was loosening the adjusters.

So, what are the ramifications of driving it with the rear a bit lower than the front? Will 170/153 be a problem, or can I leave it that way till spring when I can get more kroil or something in there to loosen the nut up?

Wisconsin Joe

It won't look even.

AFAIK, that's the only real issue you are going to see.

The biggest difficulties with suspension being wrong height is with the fronts. Bottoming out, having the geometry of the control arms and steering rack wrong,

Have you tried to turn the adjusters with the car in the air and the wheel off?
Wheel off gives a lot more working room, weight off the coil over makes the adjusters easier to turn.

FredR

I take the point of view that the important parameter is to keep that 7mm differential between the front and rear given as per WSM there is a defined range of acceptable ride heights so you could lower the front some to get to that point of 7mm differential height.

Trust you are aware that by changing height on the front the alignment some. Increasing height causes more toe-in and less negative camber as I recall and going from 143 to 170 may induce significant change or so I suspect. If your alignment was up the creek to start with no issue. Toe is relatively easy to correct without going to the alignment shop but personally I prefer to get the thing on the laser rig if adjustments are warranted. .

Christopher Zach

Yes. I jacked up each corner, pulled the wheel, and did the adjusters. Maybe I could put a breaker bar on the tool but to be honest I'd worry about skipping/galling the rear adjusters.

Will try again next weekend, maybe the penetrating oil needs a week or so to sit there and be knocked around.

Christopher Zach

The alignment was toast to begin with, I think the PO just lowered it. I can see some of the skips and galling on the adjusters going in the down direction, ah well.

Once you get them free it seems they are not bad to turn. Would heat be a bad idea? Yes, it probably would, I'm right next to the gas tank :-)

FredR

Once they are free to move as designed they are not too bad to move but they still put up a bit of a fight. Best way is to get them up in the air, wheels off etc. Rears I have moved with wheels on the deck albeit on a lift, fronts all I can say is "Better man than I Gunga Din" if you can do them with the wheels on the deck.

If you cannot get the rears free, then the obvious thing is to remove the coilovers and disassemble them but then that can be just as traumatic if the pins are seized which they probably are if the adjusters are seized=

Folks have tried various methods to free up seized adjusters-quite a few threads about this I seem to remember. Not sure I would want to use heat on such- the plastic gas tank being the icing on the cake!. Use your favourite loosening agent liberally, leave it to soak in overnight and then have a crack at it. If you are determined to be brutal you could try a great big Stilson wrench on it if "pretty" is not your thing not that I particularly recommend such. Too much force however and that can ruin your day completely or so I understand if the tag shears.

I take attrition from the heat over here but then I do not get salty roads to screw the undercarriage up and seize things- plenty of fine sand and dust though!