Because my GC sleeve looks like this:



and despite wearing off that much material it still rubs on occasion, should I cut off the top 2" of this GC sleeve?

Thanks

 

I would show that to Ground Control.

 

Is that front or rear? Do you have them installed correctly?

 

Rear, Bilstein shock and a GC kit specified for Bilsteins. AFAIK I mounted it correctly, there's just a bit of play at the top on the cheesy GC spring pad. It doesn't keep the spring centered well at all. I don't think tender or helper springs would help either.

Edit: the spring unseats during extra long excursion and doesn't always re-seat itself strait. It's a PITA. I'm thinking about wrapping some tape around the top or something to cut the occasional grinding noises. I figure the tape will either keep the spring centered or get torn apart after a few miles.



[Modified by 4doorH22, 1:32 PM 4/14/2002]

 

You might want to ask GC about it. It would seem to me that if you cut off the worn area there would be a edge left where the spring had to come down. Either that or it might hit the shock body.

BTW, you did trim the upper 'shroud' per instructions, right?


[Modified by civicrr, 11:11 AM 4/14/2002]

 

craft yourslef a nylon sleeve and put it in the spring seat..
cut it to be eaxctly the size of the springs ..
so it should sit on that..and that in the spring seats

maybe that could help to get it centerned correctly

 

Fix your spring seats the sleeves are not the problem. Are you jumping or constantly running over curbing? Why is your suspension being continuesly unloaded to the point where your springs unseat? How long were your stock springs? How much droop do you have in your suspension? If you cut the collar your springs will move further out of align on the seat, making your problem worse. Show us a picture of your upper seat.


[Modified by DB1-R81, 11:31 AM 4/14/2002]

 

Take a Washington DC road hump at a paultry 40 mph and the rear compresses and unloads so fast the shock travels far enough to unseat the spring.
I'm using an 8" spring, ideally I'd have a 9" spring, but Eibach only has 8" and 10" ERSs in a 2.5" diameter (10" is too long and 8" is a bit short).
It does not take much travel at all to unseat the spring. This has been a problem on the street, not the track. Yes, local roads are harder on my suspension than all the gators I run over!

 

Take the cheap road out. Drill the top hat and zip tie the spring to it.

If you cut the sleeve, it'll just rub on the shock. The other solutions are to use a longer spring, which Hyperco might have, or raise the ride height.

Warren

 

mine are doing this too... ive had them on my car for approx. 2-3months. i was pretty concerned with it when i first noticed it, i guess i still should be. my car is lowered significantly from stock hiegth.

the art i dont understand, is that the only time my front wheels are off the ground is when i jack the front up. mine are not worn as bad, but i still am concerned.


[Modified by exaccord, 2:02 PM 4/14/2002]

 

my GC's did the same damn thing. I just swapped them out for H&Rs.

 

I am not having this problem at all with my GC and have had them on Tokico Illumina and Koni's.

Question, do you have the rubber (or rubber like) donuts GC provides between the shock body and the sleeve? In other words, is the sleeve loose and able to move around any when the spring is unloaded? I put several of the the donuts between the shock body and the sleeve and there is no play in the sleeve.

The other item I would check. GC has new upper spring rubber spacers (they call them upper spring perch) that are placed between the top of the spring and the shock tower. This spacer fits just inside the shock tower perch and covers the entire top of the spring. It ceters itself by sliding between the inside of the spring and the outside of what is left of the stock dust boot, that they call for you to cut in the instructions. On mine, it keeps the spring from moving around too much. The spring can still move, but i have never had a problem with it becoming unaligned when the suspension is unloaded.

If it is not either of these, I would contact GC and talk to them.

Eric Carman

PS- I will be at the April 21st Fed Ex field event if you want me to take a look at it. Just look for me around Eric Kriemelmeyer's Subaru. I am running number 154.




[Modified by Crosser, 3:23 PM 4/14/2002]

 

Tie-wrap those ******* into their perches on whichever end doesn't like to reseat itself. My rear did the same thing over big humps going into parking lots and such.

 

I dont have this full extension problem everyone is describing. as a matter of fact, after I put on my CTR/SI front swaybar setup, my springs are still under load when i put the entire front end on stands. My rears are only off the perch by about an inch or so. My gc kit came with the poly pillowball inserts and my springs stay stuck on those and always seemed to be aligned perfectly to hit the collar.

One thing I did do, and I'm not sure how many people in here do this, but I "unloaded" all of my bushings on any moving part of the suspension.

With the wheels off, and all the front lower and upper arms bolts just snug, and the same in the rear of the trailing arms and all the links, I rested the cars front lcas and rear lcas (one side at a time) on jackstands.

This brings the car to ride hieght, then I tightened all the bolts to spec.

The way I see it is when you lower your car, you load all the bushings up, and the bushings want to unload themselves making them suspension extend as far as it was stock.

Just some food for thought.

 

How tall are your springs? Some of us are running shorter springs. When my car is off the ground I have 2-3" between the spring and the perch.

 

Dont know how long the springs are, but they are whatever comes in the special edition for civics.

The nice thing is, on the front before I added the sway and unloaded all the bushings, my suspension would extend and I would have 2 inches in front between the spring and the perch.

This picture is with the entire front end supported on jackstands.



[Modified by tonyxcom, 12:17 AM 4/15/2002]

 

Yes! Driving in DC sucks!

I feel ya... South Capitol bridge sucks too... =P
I prefer driving a stock accord in DC.

 

Hmmm. This may or may not help but it should. I've had friends with this problem and i looked it over and took their car for a drive. I've come to the comclusion that some springs are just too short and most companies use dead coils to keep thier springs seated. On my car i had this problem and all i did to fix it was tighten the nuts bown on the shock shaft to the upper shock bushings. My springs are under load when the car is on jack stands. How much gap do you have between the springs and upper shock mount when your car is jacked up?