Hopefully there is an easy solution to this...

I have off the shelf Koni adjustables that I use for autoxing duties whenever my car isn't broken. But in the meantime, I use my car for the street. I have noticed that the shocks tend to slowly slide through the fork that attaches to the front LCA's. As they do this, my ride height slowly lowers, and lowers and lowers. This happens over the course of a month or two and tends to get worse unless I raise the car up, raise the shock up and retighten the pinch bolt.

I didn't reuse the brake line brackets from my stock shocks for my Koni's, and on the stock shocks I think they double as a ride shock retainer to keep the shock from sliding through the fork's pinch bolt. I use a torque wrench everytime I put it back together, and have been upping the torque to try and prevent sliding.

Has anyone else had this problem with their Koni's... and had a solution besides regularly checking their shocks?

 

Are you making sure the pinch bolt is in the dent in the lower body? That dent is there specifically so that the fork can't move once the bolt is in.

 

Are you torquing it to spec also?

You *can* gain some shock travel by dropping the shock all the way into the fork though.

 

Yeah, the pinch fork is in the dent.

And I would like to be able to gain shock travel, but without any camber adjustment up front, a slipping shock will give me too much camber and toe changes.

And yes, I either torque it spec or over-torque it about +10 lb-ft.


See the bracket in the very lower right in the picture, that is supposed to hold the brake lines in place. I think that doubles to hold the shock from pounding itself down through the fork. The Koni's do not come this, so in addition I have to zip tie the brake lines out of the way each time I remove the shocks. I think this bracket is welded on the stockers too.

 

I'm not sure about your model, but on the later model civics and integras, the bracket can be removed from the stock shock with a little convincing from a hammer. If you still have them, try removing the brackets and reinstalling on the Koni.

 

Ditto, for sure on the 88-91 Civic/CRX (probably everything else too, except for the newer EP3/DC5 suspension types), you need to "knock"/"chisel" (tap with hammer + big flathead) that part off the oem shock and re-use it on the Koni. That basically limits how high to set the fork before you tighten the pinch bolt and it also has that little "nub" that fits in the split of the fork to orient it correctly.

 

Hey Jonna,

I'm assuming that it isn't sliding past the large diameter increase about a 1/2" past the dent right? I thought about making another dent (a la DB2-R81's method) and raising it up, since I'm also not using the brake-line brackets, but figured it's not worth my time with the GC upper mounts.

Also, I wouldn't be sure that the torque specs for the shock fork with the Koni shocks is the same as with the stock specs (dia. probably a bit different). In any case, I wrapped the bottom of my shocks with a layer of e-tape, because it was moving around before I could tighten the fork completely. Might want to try that.

 

Simple answer...tighten the bolt tighter.

The brake line bracket ring that slides off the stock shock onto the Koni if you want to use it is completely non-structural and non-load bearing. It simply gives a location to easily attach the brake line bracket to and line things up with and nothing more. I have not used these rings on my street cars or race cars for many years with my Konis as I typically push the shock bottoms further down through the mounting fork to take advantage of the free available compression stroke and use a zip tie to keep the brake line from moving around.

The entire load bearing function is done by the clamping pressure of the fork from the pinchbolt and that is all. The dent is simply there to help align the bolt to easily fit the fork and not deflect off the curvature of the shock bottom and risk cross threading into the other side of the fork. If you want to leave the brake line bracket ring off and push your shock bottom farther down through the fork, just start the bolt when it is lines up with the dent so you don't cross thread it but don't tighten it, then wedge a screwdriver or wedge chisel into the slit at the backside to force the fork wider open. Then push the fork higher on the shock body and often you can get up to 1/2 inch at the shock which equates to 3/4 inch of free stroke at the wheel. This should really only be done with a coil-over set-up so you can readjust the height of the car back up to get your free stroke. Fixed perch springs will just make the car sit lower doing this risking whatever other side effects. Don't try to put a new dent in the shock because it is so strong down there that without the right fixture and press, you would simply oval out the lower area and then it won't fit in the wishbone. Don't also grind a new dent (I have seen this) into the body as you will likely grind a hole in the side and cause a leak .

About 2-3 times per year I get people who say that there car is slipping down and it is always that the bolt simply needs to be tighter. I have never used a torque wrench on a Honda pinchbolt, I just run in down solidly, good and tight and have never had trouble with it moving. The only other thing that I can thing of is that if your car is so low that you are regularly running out of stroke and hitting your bump rubber (praying that you have one) really hard on the shock top or coil binding your springs, hitting big bumps could be acting like a solid pile driver on the shock body and then the energy will find the weakest link in the chain which might be the insufficiently tight pinchbolt casuing it to slip. If that is the case, then raise the car back up a little bit to give it some actual suspension stroke and then tighten the pinchbolt.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mojoGSR92 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
I didn't reuse the brake line brackets from my stock shocks for my Koni's, and on the stock shocks I think they double as a ride shock retainer to keep the shock from sliding through the fork's pinch bolt. </TD></TR></TABLE> they sure do not. ask me how I know....

one of my pinch bolts stripped but I thought it was torqued to spec, over the next few weeks I noticed my car sitting lower in that corner and sure enough the shock pounded its way down into the fork a half inch more, just pushed the brke line bracket up.
I ended up buying an entire shock and fork assembly for $65 locally to replace just the fork and pinch bolt... doh... but now its good as new.

so, tighten your pinch bolts more!
also make sure they're not lubed!
maybe buy new bolts too, the correct bolts have a dot of plastic on the threads to prevent them from coming loose, like forever-lasting-threadlock, maybe your pinch bolts were replced with "normal" bolts at one time?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by owen_the_soyboy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> the correct bolts have a dot of plastic on the threads to prevent them from coming loose, like forever-lasting-threadlock, maybe your pinch bolts were replced with "normal" bolts at one time?</TD></TR></TABLE>

yeah the plasic is there to lock the bolts in place so they don't work themselves out. The honda manual says you're supposed to replace them every time you take them out, so if you didn't that could be part of the problem

 

Good to know Lee... I didn't install my brake line retainers and was going to install. Won't install them now that I know for sure.

My technique is the following. Install the pinch bolt by hand, raise the suspension using a floor from jack below the LCA and compress the suspension. The shock will bottom out in the fork then tighten the pinch bolt to stock spec. Works for me and no slippage after 2 plus years.

There is about 0.5" of shock body extending past the lowest part of the fork sleeve.

 

Thanks for all the replies everyone. I typically use anti-seize on the c-clip that controls the ride height on the Koni's to keep it from rusting, and I guess I likely don't torque the pinch bolt down tight enough.

I plan on switching to GC custom rates down the line but for now I use Neuspeed Race Springs (2.25" lower, 500f/450r rates), and while I trimmed the stock bump rubber in half I wouldn't be surprised if I'm bottoming out a little bit. I have the Koni's on their highest height setting up front so it's the best I can do for now.

Thanks everyone for all the help... now I have a few things to try for next time I put the suspension back together.