Coilover help!
 

OMG.

Cory, we've got a bit of a problem - see the attached image. I popped the hood when I got home to adjust the front dampers, and I found this. One of the bolts on the front passenger side broke - just snapped clean off at the top. It was sitting on a little ledge at the bottom of the engine bay.

What now? :(

SHIT! ummm. . .
Options: contact manuf. and see if that stud can be replaced. they are just a pressed in stud, that should be able to be knocked out, like a wheel stud.

2: rig it. Knock out stud and put a bolt up from the bottom, and a nut on top. kinda getto, but it would work.




All I can think of really! I would think that if you're not racing, you should be okay driving that until we can get it fixed.
Let me know if you need me to do anything for you dude!

I don't have the tools to be able to rig it. . .

and I can't say I trust the other two bolts right now :(

They look like they're pressed in, so I suppose it'd possible to replace it. . .

Argh. I feel sick. What if another one comes off?

Damn dude. I don't know. I can't think of anything to fix it any easier. Hell, I could even come down to CC if needed after work tomorrow and see what we can do. I think the only quick fix is the bolt up from the bottom. If I brought a hammer and punch, I think we could knock that sucker out and put a bolt up in there. Shit man, let me know what you need.

This sucks! I feel bad dude!

Even "rig" it right now, and see if the manuf. can send a replacement stud.

Gimme a call, I'm still up obviously.

775-843-1170

Hopefully that will work as a good temp solution. And hopefully Gruppe-s will be able to get me a replacement bolt relatively quickly - at least in relation to the time it took them to actually ship me the damn set. :P

And at any rate, the car looks and handles great. It bounces like a mofo down the freeway, but it's lost most of the body roll. Nice and solid.

The only time I've seen that happen is when they are over tightened. What did you guys use to tighten those? However, if that were the case, it probablly would have broken when you were working on it, not while being driven. Bizarre. maybe just a faulty thread.

The rears could only have been tightened by hand, right? As far as the front goes, I don't remember. I think an airtool.

By the way, Cory - apparently they did not replace our house # after painting our front door, so finding our place will be a pain in the ass. Just give me a call when you hit Long St. and I'll stand out on the corner for you.

And can we double-check the bolts on the rears? I just wanna be sure.

Well, an air-ratchet can get at the back ones easy ( I know because I use my air ratchet on mine)...It doesn;t take much to mess up one of those studs, they do not require a lot of torque.

Theoretically, couldn't we replace the camber plate if the stud itself can't be replaced? Since the springs are separately pre-loaded, we'd just have to swap it out. . .

Just a thought. . .

1st, DON'T DRIVE ON THAT STRUT! If one of those tore off, who knows if the other's are about to go. If those all shear off, you're going to have a *mess* on your hands the 1st bump you hit. If you have to drive the car, you need to get a spring compressor and steal the top mount off your stock strut and use that temporarily.

Then, while the strut top's off, see if you can't press the broken stud out and replace it with one from a stock top mount. If they're not the same, you'll need either a replacement stud, or a whole new top mount. You might be able to get a new top mount from the manufacturer if that bolt was stripped from the factory or something.

For future reference, those bolts only need about 15 ftlbs of torque IIRC. Air tools should *not* be used to tighten those! If you did hit 'em with the impact wrench, you might want to check 'em all out and make sure the rest are okay.

I may not have the tools necessary to smack the broken bolt out of the topmount, but I do have a big-ass ratchet set. :P

I went ahead and checked the other bolts for the front struts. They were easy enough to break loose, and I tightened them back down gently with a hand ratchet, so they should be fine. It looks like it was just the one.

I hadn't thought of that - I dunno if the sizes match up exactly, but after eyeballing them, I'd guess that we should be able to use a bolt off of the stock topmount as a temporary placeholder until I can get a replacement.

It's not like I'm gonna be racing any time soon ;)

I'm gonna go down to CC after work today and see if we can make it safe again at least. I know those studs are pressed in, and we should be able to knock it out, and at least put a bolt and nut on there to hold that sucker in. I may even be able to get another stud to put in there, and make it like it ought to be, as long as the splines on the stock stud are the same as the Helix studs. I'll be down tonight though!

I am a firm believer in a job done right!

OK, I have another factory stud, and a top bolt if needed. I just knocked out the factory stud with a brass hammer, so I don't see why we can't knock out the Helix stud with a hammer and punch, which I will be bringing with me. If the factory stud has different splines, I also have a grade 8 bolt, and nut that fits through the hole, and will come up far enough to get some good bite.

Don't worry J, we'll get this taken care of tonight!

Sweet :)

Don't forget to give me a call as you hit Long St. My house is numberless at the moment. :P

My thought as well. It won't necessarily break while you're working on it though. It could have yielded just enough to severely weaken it, and then when load was applied while driving it would pop right off.

It is possible. I am not trying to cast off blame. I feel really bad that it happened at all! 'Least it looks like we can fix it without a big headache.

I don't feel that they were over-tightened, but it seems that is about the only thing that could have done this. I'm always willing to own up to my come-backs though!

Did the manufacturer give a torque spec for those fasteners? If so, did you guys follow it? Just asking...

If no torque spec was used then I would certainly suspect over-tightening... what works on OE Subaru fasteners might not work on these parts, because aftermarket mfgrs. frequently use lower strength hardware.

The OEM torque spec is only 15 lbs... that's just "snug" with a 3/8" ratchet... they don't need to be tight, as they only have to keep the top mount from moving latterally.

I was asking about a spec from the coil-over manufacturer, since they're the ones providing the hardware. Torque specs are based on how much preload the particular fastener being used can withstand...

I know, I'm just saying that if the OEM rating is 15 lb/in, and the aftermarket ratings are usually less... it's very easy to over tighten those little bastards.

^^^Exactly. I believe that is the problem. They did not offer any instructions, or torque specs that I saw though. In the box, all I saw was coilovers, spanner wrenches, and the little damp. adj. tools. No instructions whatsoever. My TEINs came with a whole BOOK of instructions, in Japanese! Ha Ha! Lot of good that did!

I do believe I likely overtightened these then, in that instance. My mistake, but I will personally make sure that it's corrected!

Dang, I bet I overtightend the rear ones in my wagon after adding the strutbar. I'll check the torque tonight...hope I don't find a similar situation.

The typical rule of thumb on these is try and only use a ratchet as large as the bolt/stud. In this case, a 1/4" ratchet is about right, and could probably be tightened pretty hard and not get over 20 ft/lbs. With a larger rachet then the bolt, you have to be real careful on torques. It is pretty easy to put 30-40 or event 50 ft/lbs on a 3/8" ratchet. That will stretch/snap all but he strongest 4-6mm bolt/stud

No instructions of any kind were provided with these.

Ok, I need to find a way to dial out a bit of the bounce in these. They handle bumps ok, but they're oscillating down Carson st. It's a lot harsher than I expected, and gets a bit disorienting on the ride to and from work. My wife complains that she feels a bit motion-sick after a 20 minute ride. What can I do? Stronger damping? Softer? Will ride-height affect it at all with the springs pre-loaded as they are? Or should I drop the $400 that it will cost to have the steering rack bushings on my Eagle replaced? :P

I'm also gonna need to adjust the ride height some. The pre-set height on these gave me about 13.75 from wheel center to fender lip on the front, and only 13 on the rear! It's pretty low. :huh:

If it's actually oscillating, like continuing to rise and fall for more than 1 cycle after a bump input, then add more damping.

Yeah, more dampening.

I'll give it a shot. This seems to be the same thing that Scott was complaining about with his JIC coilovers - they just oscillate on the uneven roads here. I can actually see the front end bouncing slightly.

So I guess performance is supposed to feel like a ride on Star Tours? :D

Don't forget that having the car too low seems to make the bounce worse. At least that's what I noticed with the JIC's. If the front Lower Control Arms are lowered past horizontal, things seem extra bumpy.

Cory just came by and got a nice sturdy bolt stuck in there, so they're safe and solid for the time being.

We're gonna fiddle with the height and camber and get it aligned tomorrow before the meet. Hopefully fixing the height will take care of some of the bounce and the dampers will do the rest. Then everyone can have a look-see at Bully's, and Nick can have his ride :)

I think I just have bad luck with threaded items - bolts, screws, etc. I had a problem with the threads on my shift knob before getting it replaced, then this with the coilovers, and this morning we got our Xbox 360 demo unit in today, but one of the cheap little screws that holds the plastic shell in place stripped and now I can't get the system running until the MS rep comes by to replace it. :lol:

Sweet, I can't wait for my ride. I've gotta try to get away from the packing for a moment or two. Actually J, you could stop by my house on your way home from the meet, have some pizza, give me a ride, and maybe even help me throw a box into the uhaul. :lol:
What do you say?

I'll talk to you later.

Dude, I need to save my strength for my own move at the end of the month :P

Actually, I'd love to help if I didn't have to get up at 6AM to drive my wife to work.

Here's a question for the experienced coilover owners: since the height is adjustable independent of spring preload, what kind of adjustments to both might help smooth out the ride a bit?

You just need to keep the car off of the bump stops. Any ride height and spring strength that accomplishes that for the average road imperfection is enough. After that, it's damping that takes out the occilation. Handling is more complicated, but ride comfort is usually not with regard to ride height.

I had some serious over damping when I put the TEINs in. The ride was like I just took out the springs altogether, and installed blocks of wood! Now I have them set at, out of 22 possible adjustments, 11 rear and 14 front. Feels MUCH better! I think you can play around with the adjustments and be able to find a happy place.

We can reset the ride height tonight where you need it, and get it driving straight down the road again once we align it!

Frankly, I'm just glad we got that topmount put back together. *WHEW*

Motion sickness
 

My girlfriend gets sick and this was the solution.

Everything seems cool now. We got ride height at a decent level and things seem better. It still bounces a bit on the freeway at low damping levels, but it's smoother overall. I'll just have to play with damping to find an acceptable compromise.

Now all I need to do is pick up a set of camber bolts to finish off the rear alignment! :P

What alignment specs are you shooting for?

-1.0 rear, -1.5 front, no toe.

We started running out of time earlier tonight, so if I remember correctly, right now I'm running about -2.5 rear, -1.5 front. :P

That's roughly where I had my RS for like 3 years. Add a little toe-out front and a lot of toe-out rear, and you get a car that loves to turn without breaking loose at either end. :D

I do think that if we loosen those rear knuckle bolts, we can pull some of that rear camber out if you still want. I can't say how much though...

The camber correction bolts would def. help, but I'd be willing to try and see how much we can get without them.

I don't think you can get more than a couple points without the camber bolts.

^^^Yeah, not gonna get too much really, but closer for now if it's a worry of his, until he can buy camber bolts.
My rear camber didn't kick out as negative as his did when I put the TEINs in... Maybe just the manuf.?

By the way Cody, WTF is that new signature!!!???

The Eibach's drop such a slight amount, that I don't even need camber bolts to achieve the -1 camber I run in the rear. I bought them anyway though thinking I'd need them for the rear, and the alignment place installed them in the front. <_<

The quote is from here: http://www.4q.cc/chuck/

I've got a set of camber bolts I can sell you. $40 New in Box.

That works for me. Can I pick 'em up on thursday?

I think I'm gonna have to wait to finish the camber adjustment until I get my winter tires on, though. With as crazy busy as I'll be at work the next couple of weeks, I'll have to let it run "as-is" for a little while longer.