Reading my helms it says to use a floor jack to add load to the damper before tightening the fork bolts. This is the third time I have swapped suspension and have never actually performed that step. Is it really that critical to add load before tightening those two bolts?

The one that goes through the top of the fork and the bottom one as well I don't see how adding load to the suspension or not would make any difference. Just out of curiosity I thought I would ask. They had to have put it there for a reason, but I can't for the life of me figure out why unless they want to make sure the fork is seated on the damper.

 

well, you definitely need a load to push the fork and damper together before tightening the fork bolt.
I usually first tight the bottom fork bolt, then use the jack to add load onto the whole suspension arm, and then tighten the to fork bolt.

I think more crucial is making sure the damper is well aligned with the fork....

 

You want to have the suspension set at close to ride height to tighten the fork to control arm bushing to correctly "clock" the bushing. This is because the bushing doesn't spin within the control arm.

 

This is a fail. You must have the suspension at final ride height before tightening ANY bolt that goes through the center of a bushing. If you even cinch a bolt down without torquing it before lowering the vehicle, the rubber bushings will twist when you put the car down. This causes the bushings to be preloaded (twisted) all the time when driving. As you can imagine, this leads to premature bushing failure.

Personally I believe it be one of the most important steps (as well as the most overlooked) of changing the ride height of a vehicle. All suspension bolts should be loosened several turns and re-tightened and torqued at the new ride height.

On the DC chassis, the only bushings that do not apply to this "re-tightening" rule are the rear trailing arm bushing, and the inner bushing on the rear UCA. Both of these would have to be pressed out and clocked in order to relieve any unwanted twist at a modified ride height.

This has been covered MANY times in the past.

 

This is correct.

There have been a few members that have had serious ride issues w/ bushings twisting.

 

I've been talking about clocking bushings since the dinosaurs walked the earth. Glad to know the internet caught on lol. It's surprising how many people don't know about clocking bushings. But yes, it's a critial step to avoid premature bushing failure. It is needed not only when you remove a bolt, but also when you change ride heights.

I will usually clock the front upper control arm bushings on an EG/DC by jacking up the LCA and tightening the bolts while the wheel is still off. On an EK, you can just set the car on the ground first.

For the LCA bolts, I usually just lower the car to the ground and crawl under with an impact and zap it on....not hard. I can zap it till it's at about 70lbs or so. I've gotten pretty accurate at it.

This method works for the rear LCA bolts as well.

Also, to say that you need to clock every bushing that has a bolt thru the center may only be accurate on EG/DC/EK chassis'. My S2000 has a caster bushing that doesn't need clocking. This is the same design on BMWs, DC5s, etc. etc.

Basically, any bushing that pivots with LCA/UCA up/down movement needs to be clocked.