cut down rear springs (poss problem) and some other stuff

[fightingtorque]

Hi guys,

Been quiet on my 126 for a while as I had a monster joblist to do on my Esprit to make a trip to Le Mans and Stuttgart in June.  Went well and now some attention can go back to 126 matters.

Fitted some alloys I got cheap a couple of months ago and because the tyres are 145/70 13 it was rubbing a bit on one side at the front, just behind the bumper.

To cure it I have modded the leaf spring mount on that side - slotted the holes to move the wheel back just a couple of mm, seems ok now.  Of course while the mounts were out I also got them machined down to lower the car about 12 mm............

so it would be silly not to lower the back at the same time.   I cut one coil off the springs, it looks ok but.........  they do go loose at the bottom of the travel.  I have to re-mot the car, potentially it will fail on this.

Does anyone in Norwich (Stuey etc) have a spare set of standard springs kicking around just in case?

And any better ideas that cost no money?


Started all this because I imagine the rubbing issue would have been an MOT problem and the orig. wheels / tyres are all pretty perished looking.
Cheers,

Gav

[Rusty's Uncle]

  I found that about 3/4 of a coil cut to give a bit of a flat on the spring face gave a pretty good rear suspension aspect & had no problems with the MOT  [-/

[stuey]

phil problee has a few standard sets kicking about in his shed, but you can wire them into the cups to stop them dropping out and this cures the issue of the mot (or buy shorter shocks to limit the travel..)
if you need help or bits picking up give me a shout (if you are thinking of going to phil ring first as he is quite busy at the moment...)

[fightingtorque]

Wire both ends, or just top or bottom?

I was a spaz, my initial impression was that you had to cut a complete coil because of the shapes in top and bottom seats, it wasn't until afterwards that I realised the top seat is loose and can be rotated.  Had I realised, I would have started with 1/2 coil and then worked from there.

Longer term mod might be to extend the bottom mountings of the shock, i.e. the plates that come down out the bottom of the suspension arm, so that I can put another bolt hole in lower down.

Shocks are new so don't want to bin them.  Thought about trying to cut the thread down further but I imagine it is hard as hell.

I'll try wiring them in anyway.

Gav