Club 80-90 Forums

Ive had new front shocks put on just standard. Much better cornering and less dipping on braking. Good on most roads BUT knocks over the rough stuff and it reminds me of the time when I had an upper ball joint begin to fail. Ive told the garage who said see how it goes! but i suspect this is play on the shock mounts so what would the garage have missed?

check the shocks are correctly tightened can be done on road witout jack

poss top damping rings on front shocks are worn not expensive to replace

To tighten do I just hold the square ended piece and turn the bolt. Secondly the damping ring... is this the last bush before the shock is inserted into the upper hole. I can see a new bush on the outside under the tightening bolt. What tool do you use to hold the square bit at the top.

thats the bush

i just used an adjustable wrench for the square part and a ring spanner

sounds like that top nut or damping ring is knacked as said above. Also its normal to nip up the securing bolts for shockers and then torque up with full weight on the suspension, so the rubber bushes are not constantly skewed.

well I got my spanner in and the first thing I noted was that I could move the shock in any direction by a small amount so there is some play. I could rotate the whole shock also. My tools just dont let me get purchase to torque up. Is the play I mention the problem or do shocks have to have a bit.

anyway Ill take it back next week

No play as described - is the top bush missing? the dished cap washer?

The are some mods I beleive to the bush in the top of the helper spring (fits under the top suspension mount plate):

251 413 439C (26mm)

the helper spring has two styles:

82mm 251 411 123 B (Carat, Caravelle and lowered)
104mm 251 411 123 E (245; 256)

It had the wrong shocks on. The top of the shock had different distance of thread and plainshaft to the flange so the shock was not held on compression but worked on expansion. I despair sometimes! a simple visual check could have told the mechanic something was not right.