inspiring thread, well done. good to see someone doing it themselves, anyone can walk into a shop witha wedge of cash. unfortunately, i cant weld, therefore am one of those people haha

I unfortunately cannot walk into a shop with a wedge of cash.

I dont have a wedge of cash!

i understand if you dont want to but would it be possible to do a little writeup/walkthrough for these.

i cant weld, so something i could give an engineer to make these up would be great!

Not to be attempted if you are not an experienced welder!

Preparations:

Buy 2x coilover conversion kits from Rally Design or Burton Power or similar.

Buy suitable length and rate springs (I bought 8", 225lb springs in order to slam it).

If you've never replaced the shocks you'll need new, shorter inserts (see PhilJ for budget or Avo etc for performance).

Paint. I used satin black hammerite, but any metal paints will do.

Tools:

See http://www.clubpolo.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=65689 for tools needed to remove struts.

Dremel with cutting discs (preferably 32mm dia ones).

4.5" angle grinder with grinding discs, cutting discs.

Wire brush attachment for grinder/drill etc.

Welder (130amp gas with 0.8mm wire minimum!).

(Lathe

20mm morse taper)

1) Remove struts from car. Seperate all parts including removing dampers (hubs can be left in place). Process described in http://www.clubpolo.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=65689.

2) Using 4.5" angle grinder and cutting disc, cut the original spring cups from the struts. Being careful not to cut into the strut itself!! Then grind back the remainder until you can slide the threaded tube over.

3) Remove the paint and rust from the tube part of the strut and steering arm with a wire brush attachment.

4) Using dremel and cutting discs (will take a few!), cut through the weld on the *top* of the steering arm. Do not cut into the strut itself and remember that you want to remove as little actual metal as possible! The bigger the gap between the steering arm and the strut, the more difficult it will be to weld!

5) This is the point where you need to set up a jig! How you do this is upto you, but you need to keep the arm in the same horizontal place as it was before. I used a workmate and a piece of threaded bar. Having done this, cut through the weld on the bottom of the steering arm.

6) Decide how much lower you want your steering arms (I chose 2.5", but it's upto you really!), and support the steering arm in the correct position. I used a nut on the threaded bar and some pieces off wood.

7) Now it's time to crack out the most dangerous tool of all, the welder. Remember that if your steering fails, you're screwed! You MUST get the settings perfect on the machine to get plenty of penetration without blowing a hole in the tube. Blow a hole in the tube and its new strut time i'm afraid! On my clarke 151TE I turned the wire feed up to 8-9, the power to 2 max (almost full power, probably around 130 amps). This gave me a lovely consistant weld with enough penetration that you could see the weld just about to poke through inside the strut.

Firstly tack weld. Double check! Then weld fully, thinking about the pain you will go through if it goes wrong!

8) Measure the distance between the steering arm and the threaded part at the top of the strut, and cut down the threaded tube to a suitable length (I used a hacksaw... doesnt need to be accurate).

9) Place the threaded tube over the strut (you may need to grind the old steering arm welds down a bit more to get the threaded tube over), making sure you can still do the shock absorber cap up tight!

10) Weld the base of the threaded tube to the strut, remembering prior advice!

11) Bore out the 10mm hole in centre of the top cap with a 20mm (or the diameter of your shock tube) morse taper. Any machine shop / engineering firm will do this for you in 20 secs.

12) Strip any rust and flaky paint from the struts and paint them. Careful not to get paint in the threads!

13) Re-assemble, placing the shock in the tube, wind the spring seat right down, place spring on seat and top cap on the top. Then bolt the top mount on the top with the normal castlenut.

14) Stand back and admire, put them on your mantle piece.

Or put them on the car.

you sir are a star!

expect to see far more decked mk2s and 3 soon!

Thanks chap! :)

thats a good how to you've done there :)

they look good

11) Bore out the 10mm hole in centre of the top cap with a 20mm (or the diameter of your shock tube) morse taper. Any machine shop / engineering firm will do this for you in 20 secs.

Just to clarify that this slides below the threaded part on the shock? wedging itself secure using the machined taper?

11) Bore out the 10mm hole in centre of the top cap with a 20mm (or the diameter of your shock tube) morse taper. Any machine shop / engineering firm will do this for you in 20 secs.

Just to clarify that this slides below the threaded part on the shock? wedging itself secure using the machined taper?

It goes below the threaded part and is help in place by the top mount from the top and the spring from below :) Morse taper is just the type of drill bit they use :)

To compare lengths:

haha how massive are my coilovers!!

I think it's more how short are mine! Going to be pretty damn low :p

ah i gotcha, for some reason i thought you tappered the hole so it would hold snug, didnt realise you was refering to the morse taper drill haha!

Edited 22 January, 200818 yr by mathew

good write up mate! something for a sticky in the suspension section maybe?

good write up mate! something for a sticky in the suspension section maybe?

I'm happy with that, if they want!

Daylight pictures tomorrow. They;re as low as they can go, they'll settle a bit but still not as low as I'd hoped. Good thing about coilovers is that £40 will get me a new pair of 7", slightly softer springs ;D

Some daylight photos, with centre caps (unpainted).

is that wind right down?

JB

Edited 27 February, 200818 yr by Jackblack

is that wind right down?

JB

Yup, I'm going to be changing springs very soon (when I get the money....).

Probably 6" 250lb ones.

Update....

I've managed to get myself down another inch without changing springs by removing the top mounts and the original top caps, cutting the skirt off the top mounts and replacing it without the top caps. Now the upper spring seat rests directly on the top mount and I've cut an inch from the assembly. Still not as low as i want though but my 6" springs have now arrived :)

pictures!?!?!?!?

pictures!?!?!?!?

Unfortunately I didn't take any of the actual process :(

It's pretty obvious once you have the top mount off though.

no no no no

of the car now, its gunna look sick decked!

Was:

Is:

thats getting better mate, still a bit to go though.

thats getting better mate, still a bit to go though.

Yesss... will be able to go 2" lower on saturday :-D

Right...some pictures of what I did to the top mounts. Basically if you look at a standard one it has a flange around the bottom which is a pain in the arse... so I packed them full of grease (important!) and carefully took a hacksaw to the flange. Ended up with this:

Compare to your standard top mount and you'll see what I did more clearly :)

Adam