10 replies to this topic

[Austin Robison]

Last night while fiddling with with the suspension on my car, I noticed something perhaps a little suspicious. My car is currently up on four jack stands with the wheels off while I've been fiddling the suspension. While retightening the bolts I took off to install the spec suspension I had a jack under the left front corner to compress the suspension before torquing down the bolts and noticed that I lifted the whole car up before the spring even engaged.

All of the other corners were easily compressed and the spring engaged (and compressed) before lifting the car. I could press down on the car and bounce it a little: it felt as if it were on a spring, but it was clearly not. It definitely seems like a bent control arm or bent long bolt could cause this. (Or misadjusted eccentric bolts?). I haven't had this car aligned before, so I don't yet know if this is restricting camber or not.

Thoughts on causes? Is this something to worry about?

[James York]

If I understood correctly, you lifted the car with a jack under the LF suspension (control arm) without the spring compressing?

Yea, that's not right. You'll never be able to adjust ride height/cross if the springs never sit on the perches.

Do you have the perch on that shock set about the same number of threads down the collar as the RF? If you control arm in binding so hard to be able to lift the car without the spring, you'll have all sorts of crazy effective spring rate on that corner compared to the RF. If the perches are set similar, start looking for bent parts.

[Austin Robison]

If I understood correctly, you lifted the car with a jack under the LF suspension (control arm) without the spring compressing?

Yea, that's not right. You'll never be able to adjust ride height/cross if the springs never sit on the perches.

Do you have the perch on that shock set about the same number of threads down the collar as the RF? If you control arm in binding so hard to be able to lift the car without the spring, you'll have all sorts of crazy effective spring rate on that corner compared to the RF. If the perches are set similar, start looking for bent parts.

Correct, if the whole coilover wasn't there I'd still be able to lift the car. It's as if the control arms are bound up on something and resisting moving up (and resisting enough for me to be able to lift the car). The perches are set the same, but since the spring isn't touching the top, it wouldn't matter. I could imagine a bent bolt acting as a torsion spring here and providing the resistance, or a bent control arm doing the same. Boy do I hope it's not the subframe.

[Austin Robison]

(I should also note that the car's weight, before stripping, was enough to compress the stock springs and overcome this resistance, which is why I didn't notice until I stuck a jack under it now. Maybe just bound bushings? I have no idea if that could provide this level of resistance.)

[Keith Novak]

The suspension bushings themselves do act like a torsion spring. I loosen everything up to make it easy to get the shocks in rather than jacking at the corners. If you have one that seems much stiffer than the others, I'd suspect the long bolt is bent.

[Alberto]

Make sure the shock compresses as well. Maybe remove the shock and spring and attempt to reproduce and rule out chassis / control arms.

[Austin Robison]

So, funny story. Turns out that if your car is actually only on three jack stands, because say, the right rear jack stand is actually one click lower than the rest, it's pretty easy to lift the front left of the car...

Upon fixing the jack stand placement, the left front compressed just like the right font, no problem. Doh!

[James York]

That would do it. You had it essentially rocking on the RF/LR stands. And its very easy to "tilt" the other axis.

That's your one duh moment allowed.

[Austin Robison]

That would do it. You had it essentially rocking on the RF/LR stands. And its very easy to "tilt" the other axis.

Precisely.

That's your one duh moment allowed.

I only get one? Uh oh...

[Tom Hampton]

You only get one to tell us about...without a lot of "flak".

[Armando Ramirez]

You only get one to tell us about...without a lot of "flak".

But do share any - please!