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Front Suspension change – Tips and Tools
I have just changed the control arms, dampers, discs and calipers on my A2 and found the information on the A2OC site really useful, but just maybe I can add a little extra from my experience……..
Jack stands etc
The A2 has four holes under the body to support it for lifting. I made these wooden blocks to locate the car from the holes to axle stands with the support tube fitted upside down. It was the first time I had used them and found the shaft length to be too short when jacking the car up and down, an extra inch below and above the round support would be advisable…. and maybe I should add the main pieces supporting the weight were made from 50 year old recycled oak from my 5th form woodworking project, don’t use soft wood!
In addition to the jack stands I always keep as many wheels in place as possible and use cut off sections of a kitchen worktop to fit under the wheels.
Also I have a small motorcycle scissor lift platform that is very useful, for example to take the weight when fitting the suspension strut, and when not being actively used is jacked up under the car as extra support.
Removing the splash guards.
I was not looking forward to removing the three little screws that hold the brake disc splash guard but they each came out OK with the following technique…..
The splash guards were paper thin with rust so they were literally torn off the housing leaving penny sized bits of thin metal still under the screws. Based on the damage to the heads the screws had been attacked by someone before, no way a 8mm spanner was going to work. Each screw was heated using a Dremel Versaflame torch for about 3 or 4 minutes, then doused with cold water, then heated and cooled again. A small cold chisel was then easily able to move them. A point to note is the screws were fitted using ‘loctite‘ and this is effectively melted by the gas flame, that and the thermal movement helps break the rust bonding.
They have been re placed with stainless screws with 10mm hexagon heads, with loctite to fix and seal the threads.
The Control Arm – Removal and refitting
The control arms were original welded type and quite rusty, not nearly as bad as some but better to be changed. I fitted old style cast arms (they look to be cast steel to me) but would have gone for the fabricated ones if they were not so very expensive in comparison. I believe new fabricated arms could be rust proofed by sealing the holes and filling the inner space with expanding foam or similar, anyway this is what I did to remove and refit the control arms…..
A bit of a faff to cut the arm in two pieces but it allows the front side to pull out easily.
A two legged puller was used to push the rear half of the control arm out of the rubber bush. The bushes were still in good condition so were not removed and of course the consoles were not disturbed.
The new control arm was pushed into place using this wood working clamp. Note the usual hand screw was removed and a length of M10 screwed bar substituted, this allows the screwed bar to locate into the end of the control arm bush and much more load can be applied with a 17mm spanner.
At the other end a piece of wood fits across the aluminium housing and has a slot cut out to allow the control arm end to pop out of the rubber bush. A very important thing here is lubrication, as I have worked a lot with rubber springs in a past life I have a small bottle of silicone fluid which has to be the best rubber lubricant. Silicone grease is a poor second and soapy water not so good at all.
The tapped hole for the retaining screw is open to the elements and probably explains why the screw can sometime be difficult to remove. My screw was plastered with anti-seize for most of the thread, leaving 10mm clean, then Loctite applied in the end of the tapped hole. The loctite should help hold the screw and seal the threads and the anti-sieze hopefully will keep everything clean for the next time it has to come out. The open end of the hole was then stopped up with gasket sealing compound to keep the hole sealed.
Suspension strut rust proofing
Having read both good and bad things about Koni FS damper I decided they were the way to go but with special consideration to possible rusting. The rust seems to be around the area on the bottom of the spring and looking under the damper there is a ideally placed mud trap which could explain a lot.
.......the mud trap, now filled with wax-oyl,
……...and sealed with a heavy duty wax covering.
Will it fix the rust problem?
Fitting the suspension strut
Removing the front right hand damper is simply a pain, obviously whoever designed the right hand drive option of the car was not thinking too hard about servicing the damper. And no doubt the dreaded 3 bolts were tightened on the production line before the brake reservoir etc was installed. Whatever, I struggled and loosened two of the screws, the hardest one to reach was only finger tight! This design can be improved on.
This is what I did………
A new Meyle top mount was drilled 8.5mm to remove the threads and fit 8mm allen screws (A4 stainless). This idea may not work on other top mounts as the threaded inserts can vary. The nut shown in the picture is simply to retain the screw whilst the damper spring is assembled. When it was ready to fit to the car the nuts were removed and a large elastic band cut from an old inner tube was used to hold the three allen screws in place.
Now the unit was raised into position, nuts slipped on, and then tightened from underneath. The dust cap was used to locate the strut centrally in it’s hole until the nuts were nipped up, but it is just in the way so was discarded, (does it have a good purpose?). It would be quite possible to design a ring with three tapped holes and a central location spigot that would be easier to work with than the three nuts but I don’t have the machining capability in my shed.
These are the tools fashioned to enable under wing tightening. A long 6 mm ball end allen key cut off and held in a 6mm socket and a thin spanner found in my junk box held in a piece of steel tube flattened in the vice.
GrahamH
I have just changed the control arms, dampers, discs and calipers on my A2 and found the information on the A2OC site really useful, but just maybe I can add a little extra from my experience……..
Jack stands etc
The A2 has four holes under the body to support it for lifting. I made these wooden blocks to locate the car from the holes to axle stands with the support tube fitted upside down. It was the first time I had used them and found the shaft length to be too short when jacking the car up and down, an extra inch below and above the round support would be advisable…. and maybe I should add the main pieces supporting the weight were made from 50 year old recycled oak from my 5th form woodworking project, don’t use soft wood!
In addition to the jack stands I always keep as many wheels in place as possible and use cut off sections of a kitchen worktop to fit under the wheels.
Also I have a small motorcycle scissor lift platform that is very useful, for example to take the weight when fitting the suspension strut, and when not being actively used is jacked up under the car as extra support.
Removing the splash guards.
I was not looking forward to removing the three little screws that hold the brake disc splash guard but they each came out OK with the following technique…..
The splash guards were paper thin with rust so they were literally torn off the housing leaving penny sized bits of thin metal still under the screws. Based on the damage to the heads the screws had been attacked by someone before, no way a 8mm spanner was going to work. Each screw was heated using a Dremel Versaflame torch for about 3 or 4 minutes, then doused with cold water, then heated and cooled again. A small cold chisel was then easily able to move them. A point to note is the screws were fitted using ‘loctite‘ and this is effectively melted by the gas flame, that and the thermal movement helps break the rust bonding.
They have been re placed with stainless screws with 10mm hexagon heads, with loctite to fix and seal the threads.
The Control Arm – Removal and refitting
The control arms were original welded type and quite rusty, not nearly as bad as some but better to be changed. I fitted old style cast arms (they look to be cast steel to me) but would have gone for the fabricated ones if they were not so very expensive in comparison. I believe new fabricated arms could be rust proofed by sealing the holes and filling the inner space with expanding foam or similar, anyway this is what I did to remove and refit the control arms…..
A bit of a faff to cut the arm in two pieces but it allows the front side to pull out easily.
A two legged puller was used to push the rear half of the control arm out of the rubber bush. The bushes were still in good condition so were not removed and of course the consoles were not disturbed.
The new control arm was pushed into place using this wood working clamp. Note the usual hand screw was removed and a length of M10 screwed bar substituted, this allows the screwed bar to locate into the end of the control arm bush and much more load can be applied with a 17mm spanner.
At the other end a piece of wood fits across the aluminium housing and has a slot cut out to allow the control arm end to pop out of the rubber bush. A very important thing here is lubrication, as I have worked a lot with rubber springs in a past life I have a small bottle of silicone fluid which has to be the best rubber lubricant. Silicone grease is a poor second and soapy water not so good at all.
The tapped hole for the retaining screw is open to the elements and probably explains why the screw can sometime be difficult to remove. My screw was plastered with anti-seize for most of the thread, leaving 10mm clean, then Loctite applied in the end of the tapped hole. The loctite should help hold the screw and seal the threads and the anti-sieze hopefully will keep everything clean for the next time it has to come out. The open end of the hole was then stopped up with gasket sealing compound to keep the hole sealed.
Suspension strut rust proofing
Having read both good and bad things about Koni FS damper I decided they were the way to go but with special consideration to possible rusting. The rust seems to be around the area on the bottom of the spring and looking under the damper there is a ideally placed mud trap which could explain a lot.
.......the mud trap, now filled with wax-oyl,
……...and sealed with a heavy duty wax covering.
Will it fix the rust problem?
Fitting the suspension strut
Removing the front right hand damper is simply a pain, obviously whoever designed the right hand drive option of the car was not thinking too hard about servicing the damper. And no doubt the dreaded 3 bolts were tightened on the production line before the brake reservoir etc was installed. Whatever, I struggled and loosened two of the screws, the hardest one to reach was only finger tight! This design can be improved on.
This is what I did………
A new Meyle top mount was drilled 8.5mm to remove the threads and fit 8mm allen screws (A4 stainless). This idea may not work on other top mounts as the threaded inserts can vary. The nut shown in the picture is simply to retain the screw whilst the damper spring is assembled. When it was ready to fit to the car the nuts were removed and a large elastic band cut from an old inner tube was used to hold the three allen screws in place.
Now the unit was raised into position, nuts slipped on, and then tightened from underneath. The dust cap was used to locate the strut centrally in it’s hole until the nuts were nipped up, but it is just in the way so was discarded, (does it have a good purpose?). It would be quite possible to design a ring with three tapped holes and a central location spigot that would be easier to work with than the three nuts but I don’t have the machining capability in my shed.
These are the tools fashioned to enable under wing tightening. A long 6 mm ball end allen key cut off and held in a 6mm socket and a thin spanner found in my junk box held in a piece of steel tube flattened in the vice.
GrahamH
