Adjusting Ride Height - Shocks/Spring Tension

Sounds like something odd is going on with your springs that you have so much preload (preload is probably not the correct term) with the shock off the car, e.g. springs too short, too weak. The owner of a major coil over shock manufacturer located in Atlanta was at the Atlanta Donut Derelicts this AM and he said be careful that you do not damage of the threads on the shock body. He said you should be able to adjust the spring position with the shocks on the car and the weight off of the suspension. This company pays a lot of attention to the way the threads are designed on their shocks to keep them from striping when adjusting the ride height. He also said to make sure the treads are clean.

I used a spring compressor tool that I bought at Autozone to disassemble my Koni shocks to remove the spacers. The two piece tool hooked on the springs on both sides and was threaded to compress the spring. It was very scary and I�m glad that job is done.



[This message has been edited by Mike Dailey (edited 06-14-2003).]

You probably need to jack up the corner you're trying to adjust before trying to turn the spring seats Unlike your bike, those may be 450-lb/inch springs in there. A little grease on the body-threads wouldn't hurt, either. Note that all this adjusting also changes the corner weight of that wheel plus the opposite one (e.g- the right front AND the left rear). So you can either get things looking right fairly quickly, or you can spend most of a Saturday trying to balence the car on a set of scales, which is what such shocks were designed to do. Then drive the car and start playing with the jounce & rebound setting knobs till it feels good to you for your type of driving. Also remember, the settings you finally get will change with time & temperature

Jack,

He has the shocks off of the car and is having problems setting the spring position!

I just found out that there is an auto service center in town with a Blakman Model 530 strut spring compression tool. This tool has narrow blade that will fit between the springs. It is mounted on the wall, is about 2' tall, and has a safety shroud surrounding it, that pulls down like a welders mask. I'm gonna pull the shocks and take them down there to avoid this scary stuff.

I was trying to find an easy way to do this and had the car on jack stands yesterday with the jack raised under the A-arm, trying to jet the strut compressor on, then I was going to lower the jack, and let the weight of the suspension extend the shock absorber, with the spring still compressed, making it easy to adjust the spanner nuts. This didn't work with the AutoZone strut compressor, thus the post, in frustration.

I had the shocks of a couple of weeks ago to do an initial raising of the ride height of the car. That was fine to raise the front to 4.75" from the valance to the ground, and raise the back of the car about 0.75." I was considering all the posts I read regarding alignment, etc, so I wanted to keep the steering geometry, handling the same, just firmer. I also decreased the rebound damping, so the damping would rebound fast, but not bounce, so the car would immediately be ready for the next bump in the road with full shock travel available, being conscious of ride height and ground clearance.

Then, early last week, I read one of Mike Dailey's posts regarding the difference between a GTS. So I went to Mike Dailey's website, and found Michael Murphy's Maroon GTS, loks like at a Las Vegas Fun Run, and immediately made that photo into the wallpaper screensaver for this computer (replacing Mike Dailey's Pantera as my screensaver wallpaper!!! sorry..., but just for now!!!)

So, now my goal is to raise the rear about another 1.0"-1.5" to get that aggressive stance of Michael Murphy's GTS. I love the wedge look, and it's so pronounced on his car. I also raised my exhaust pipes like his, closer to the bumper, more like the Pre-L Panteras, and I'v

Lessons in Shock Absorber Setups:

Well, now I know how the F-1 cars must have handled for the drivers in Canada this morning. The rear shocks were topped out to get the low front with higher rear. The roof of the car is level with a carpenters level, but the door jams measured with a level above the rockers are definitly sloping down in front. I was really pleased with the look, but the ride was rock hard, I felt bumps in the road I couldn't even see. Cornering is pretty tight too, but this'll shake my fillings out.

So: I'm gonna loosen the rear shocks almost back to where they were Friday and leave them there for now. I'm gonna get 16" front and 17" rear Campy clones, so I'll wait until they're installed before I do any more shock testing.

I agree with all the comments about spring height vs. spring stiffness, but I may end up sending my rear shocks back to the factory to have them install a shaft that is 0.5" to 1" longer, because the ride was great before, and only to get the look I like... a little bit more tire to fender distance, which also means it's easier to see how fat those tires really are...

These Panteras are like Harleys, people individualize them how they like and no two are identical. That's cool. They're also like Motocross bikes, you can infinitely fine tune everything exactly how you like it best. That's really cool!

"Is that a Ferrari?" How often do you hear that? Every time it leaves the garage?

Thanks for the replies and posts, I'm gonna hit the threads with WD-40 and wait to take the new spring compression tool back....

Is it more fun learning like this, adjust and re-adjust, or is it more fun to just know already exactly what shock length, spring resistance rating, and spring length you want and do it once? I just like tinkering around with it!!!!!