Coilover injury

[cwspellowe]

I'd been noticing some weird handling and noises coming from my OSF coilover so jacked the car up to investigate, found that the tapered spacer between the spring and the top perch of the strut (tapered as in it locates the spring centrally, not a perch as such but the bush between that and the spring) had been smashed to bits and was chewing itself to pieces, allowing the spring to become dislocated.

Anyone know where these can be bought? Found plenty of places selling springs and a few selling the collars, but can't find these bush things anywhere.

FYI the springs are 60mm ID.

Oh also finally found a UK D2 service dealer. £180 per strut for any they have in stock, or more for the type "I" that the 306 comes with as they don't stock them. FML.

[Piggy]

is it alloy?!

[cwspellowe]

Naw, it's the plastic spacer, look like this



But flat on one side, and sit on the adjustable collars, rather than between helpers and main spring

[Piggy]

ewww...mine are alloy...wonder if you can get alloy replacements for yours...plastic seems a bit...well...crap

[cwspellowe]

I know. Which is why they got chewed up. A lot of coilovers come with them built into the locking rings, for some reason these have flat lock rings and plastic bushes to locate the spring, one of mine is chewed to the point it fell off.

[Piggy]

thats crap...

I got uber cheap ones from Germany...and they are all alloy?!

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nout on ebay?!

[Ed Doe]

Yhpm

[cwspellowe]

Cheers Ed, replied.

No idea why they use plastic ones but there's so little info on D2's I can't even find out the threads per inch to get metal ones. Pain in the arse if you ask me.

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Gutted, Warren from Gaz can't help. He could sell me a nice set of Golds.. but not a realistic option haha.

[Matt]

I was expecting to see a spring to the face or something, disappointed.

[cwspellowe]

Been doing some reading, apparently it's an "upper spring isolator/noise cushion" and it's to allow the spring to turn freely under mcpherson strut applications, explains the low speed twanging noise i'm getting when turning the wheels as the coils are binding. PITA trying to get new ones though!

[londondan86]

I was expecting to see a spring to the face or something, disappointed.

Lol, me too!

[Scott]

Been doing some reading, apparently it's an "upper spring isolator/noise cushion" and it's to allow the spring to turn freely under mcpherson strut applications, explains the low speed twanging noise i'm getting when turning the wheels as the coils are binding. PITA trying to get new ones though!

I'd be interested to see if there's a solution for this, just in case I have any of the same problems!

[Piggy]

surely you need ones with bearings in then?!

[cwspellowe]

Nope, the D2's use a pillowball mount so the whole assembly is supposed to rotate, not the spring on a bearing. The bushing is supposed to provide anti-seize to the assembly in case the pillowball gets stiff.

Basically if the pillowball becomes tighter than the spring assembly, the spring will rotate instead. And if that happens, the bushing stops the spring from binding and causing the twanging noise.

Will strip down and regrease, a few people with ksports and D2's appear to have removed them, so will see how I get on.

[Rippthrough]

That's there not in case the pillowball gets stiff, but because a coil spring rotates as it compressses, it should have been fitted to the spring seat with some anti sieze to allow slight movement to keep everything quiet. There's no reason it shouldn't be plastic, metal ones can actually be worse, the spring diveders on the buggy are plastic and i've never managed to chew one up even covered in shit. It shouldn't happen unless the springs are loose on full droop.