Question for changing springs

[ElNormo]

I'd posted a few weeks ago about my car scraping as I went through a dip in the road or into a driveway. Thanks to the board, I've got replacement springs, and am plotting out the operation to replace mine.

Reading in the Bentley manual, it says to install the strut assembly, lower the car, and THEN tighten the lower strut bolt. Why is this? Wouldn't it be much simpler to tighten the bolt with the wheel removed and the car raised? Can the bolt be easily accessed with the car lowered and the wheel installed?

Any other gotchas I should know about before trying this out? If the problem persists, I'm going to order new shocks.

Thanks,

Norman

[brodee]

You want to do it when the car is lowered so the weight is on it. Easiest thing is to lower the car down onto a set of ramps or some 4x4's so that it's sitting on them but you can still get under it.

We did this with the front arms and the rear lower shock bolts. Luckily Mike's shop had an alingment rack so we just put the cars on that, raised them up and tightened everything back up.

[632 Regal]

you tighten the thrust arm connector links with the cars weight on it...not the strut bolt...which would be 3 of them anyways.


I'd posted a few weeks ago about my car scraping as I went through a dip in the road or into a driveway. Thanks to the board, I've got replacement springs, and am plotting out the operation to replace mine.

Reading in the Bentley manual, it says to install the strut assembly, lower the car, and THEN tighten the lower strut bolt. Why is this? Wouldn't it be much simpler to tighten the bolt with the wheel removed and the car raised? Can the bolt be easily accessed with the car lowered and the wheel installed?

Any other gotchas I should know about before trying this out? If the problem persists, I'm going to order new shocks.

Thanks,

Norman

[Kalevera]

Norman -- Are the instructions you're referencing for the front or rear spring replacement? The language in the post is confusing -- "strut assembly" usually refers to the strut housing/spring/strut INSERT that's found on the front corners of the car, while a lower "strut bolt" (where the rear shock meets the trailing arm) applies to the rear corners.

I'm assuming you're talking about the rear. Jeff & Brodee are, I think, talking about the fronts.

And the reason is simply that the rubber bushing at the bottom of the shock is compressed into the trailing arm by the bolt when tightened, thereby setting it to a degree. When the rear end of the car is up in the air, there's no weight on that bushing, which means that there'll be undo stress on it when the car is put back on the ground and driven.

It's more of a formality, some people don't do it. I usually hand tighten the bolt and then do a quick hit with an impact when it's on the ground. Done. Or, use a Tstand if the car's on a lift.

best, whit

[ElNormo]

Norman -- Are the instructions you're referencing for the front or rear spring replacement?

Thanks for pointing this out. I'm talking about a rear spring replacement. I don't have my Bentley manual here, so I'm not sure the words were exactly as they were in the book.

In any case, the manual specifies that the bolt should be tightened once the spring is under load. I'll do so by lowering the car onto something raised. A ramp, plywood... something.

Thanks for the information,

Norman