Fitting Shocks and Springs Yourself

[bugsy]

Not a problem if you get a Geo check afterwards but one thing that came to light this week, was when you bolt on the new shocks and springs don't tighten up the bolts fully untill the wheel is back on and under load.
Apparantly, if the bolts are tight they stop the metalastic bush re-aligning when you drop it down and put the load on it and they can twist and creak.

[trackcar]

yuppeties that's an issue with bushed dampers, not an issue with spherical rod end types though.

one thing that often gets overlooked though even by those who don't tighten the dampers up until in normal running position is that if you drastically alter the ride height you should also slacken all the suspension bushes off, as if the arms are running in a different attitude they stress the bushes in the arm pivots and leads to premature failure.

easiest way to do it is to do the final tightening with the car on a 4 post ramp at the ride height you're going to be running it at

[bugsy]

There you go Jools, this is why I'll only recomend people like yourself to do fitting because it's no good fitting anything if you don't set them up properly.