mark kibort

CUT THE SPRINGS!

Speedtoys

..it's a slippery slope man...

Speedtoys

It spins on the shock body.

And OUT of the car, with a chisel on the inner ring, it will NOT turn with the alum collar in a vise either.

They are one piece, forever.

mark kibort

hahaha.... i get it .....

so, you looked at it, and said, "hmmm, it worked before, height wise, and all we are doing is swaping out the shock... it should be the same ride height", right?
makes sense, but i think that internal pressure is a factor.... dont know how, but it must be, right? anyway, sounds like you need to cut the springs now...
one coil will drop it down by about 1 to 1.5". scots has a real nice look to it with the springs cut. the only draw back, is that i does stifen things up a little and there is no going back.... but springs are cheap , right and pulling it all apart again costs time... (time equals cash)

picture below is scots gold 82 with one coil cut springs. seems to be perfect

Speedtoys

I guess I need a really slow explanation, if that if I can hold the shock half-in, by hand, how this internal pressure raised the car 5".

Mrmerlin

to free the adjuster collar from the inner ring ,
get some fine grit sand paper put it onto the shock body then drive the adjuster into its seated position.

Then get a Mapp gas torch and heat the adjuster collar to 300 degrees,
then turn it with the spanner,
it should come free though,
it may take a few tries at heating to get it off,

NOTE use wet rags on the shock body to prevent it from getting too hot

dr bob

Jeff- I'm away from wsm's but remember that the front springs are different length OB vs later. Look at free length spec and you'll find your answer. IIRC, early cars didn't have adjusters so the lower perch sits higher on the shock tube.

Good used adjusters come from 928 international.

Measure carefully the pitch between coils as installed. Decide where you want the ride height relative to current, take half of the difference s the coil pitch. ie: car is an inch too high, and coil pitch is two inches. Divide pitch by half the height, and find you want to take out a quarter of a coil. The spring rate will increase by the percentage of the spring you cut off. Take one coil from a ten-coil spring and the rate goes up about 10%. You get the idea.

Landseer

..
Duplicate

Landseer

Ran into a similar situation. New bilsteins onto a factory bilstein 84car. Nosebleed. Tried everything including swap to s4 front suspension. End of day, solved with aftermarket springs

Speedtoys

So, the koni catalog says:


"Front: only if originally equipped with BOGE, excl. BOGE dampers with adjustable spring seat"

And..reading that, and I do have adjustable front springs...but shocks for a car W/O them, so the perch is way too high on the shock, and it cant be adjusted down enough, by inches.

So, I will get new adjusters for the front, but what springs should I put in there, and Ill order them from Mark at 928intl today.

Appears my 85 spring is way too long for an 928 non-height adjustable use.

Im thinking s4 springs....thoughts?

James Bailey

You could "redneck" it and torch the spring to drop it then if that is not O K as far as spring rate go to plan B and you would not need a compressor to remove the now shorter spring....

mark kibort

just cut it.... same result.... and, like you said, later, you wont need a spring compressor to remove or adjust it later! all this for making 2 cuts and removing a coil from the spring.... and not having to pull all that stuff off the car again to remove the shock. worth the try!

oh, and the ratio is more like 5:1....meaning 1" of shock piston distance, equals about 5" at the fender and tire. if you want to drop your current situation bout 1-2", then all you need is about .5" off the shock threads position.

Speedtoys

I still need to pull it, to cut it...and still need to pull it, to put on working adjusters.

SO..if I cut one coil, and that is say, 1", is that also 5" of drop?

mark kibort

you can cut it with the coils on the car. not a problem

as far as the 1" of coil drop.... good point. i guess my coorelation might be off, based on when i saw my suspension shock piston drop 1" and the wheel moved 5".
on scotts, we ddnt move the adjusters and it just dropped the car to where you see it on the pictures.

Speedtoys

Except..to replace the adjusters..im still pulling the shocks..

Why do I expect a fair amount of energy to be released, if I cut a compressed spring?

Why do I also not think that the new 'end' of the spring would then sit in to the seat correctly if I did it that way...