Hey guys,

I was driving around and I hit something in the road. This jolted my car pretty good. It punctured my rear drivers tire on the outer part. I thought everything was fine but when I drove it around. The alignment was all tweeked. And the rear driver side felt like it was swaying when I turned the wheel. When you look at that back tire, the bottom of the wheel sticks out really bad, and the upper part of the wheel is stucked under the fender well. It has really bad camber. I checked the shock but I did not see anything leaking. Could the shock still be blown? Now, I don't know to much about suspension but my current setup is Skunk2 coilovers, Tokico Blues, and a 22mm Skunk2 sway bar. If ANY of you guys can give me an idea on what to look for or replace, I would greatly appreciate it. THANKS!

 

I can't believe nobody can help me.

 

alignment, ***** and joints?

 

A mechanic sure can. You've obviously damaged one or more parts of the suspension, why you wouldn't IMMEDIATELY take it in to a shop (seeing as how you don't know all that much about suspensions) is beyond me.

Ps- Before anyone gets the bright idea of telling me to either post something helpful of shut up, this post IS helpful, honest and to the point.

 

Well, I would have taken it to a shop, but considering it is the holidays this weekend and there is mad traffic everywhere. Plus alot of places were closed, there is not a great chance of me finding someone to help me.
I took a tape measure and have measured the arms on both sides of the rear end. I also looked at the spindle. There is nothing that is bent. I think it is the shock because that rear corner sags. It feels really squishy in that corner.

 

a blown shock will not alter ride height or camber in any way. BTW, what car is this on?

 

check your control arms,see if there bent

 

Like hell it won't, I bottomed out my right front shock, blew oil everywhere underhood, and that side sags lower than any other side. And once I replaced my left rear shock it kept that side of the car up since it was so stiff compared to the aging, original shocks.

 

The springs are what hold the car at a given ride height, shock valving has NOTHING to do with it. Try this one... remove the spring and see how high the car sits without them. Answer: ON THE BUMPSTOPS. Whether or not a shock is working properly means nothing to ride height, only suspension performance and damping ability. If you knew how a standard hydrolic shock worked, you'd know this.

 

You seem to be forgetting that the shock does help suspend the car along with the springs. And especially with stock progressive rate springs, the absence of a shock or even the absence of pressure inside a shock will put more force on it's corresponding spring and it will compress more.

If you're going to "help" people, get your **** straight.


[Modified by sackdz, 12:50 AM 11/29/2002]

 

Guys look, let's go through this one from beginning to end. A shock, even a gas charged shock (as most are nowadays), exerts virtually no expansion pressure on the suspension. You've heard of people who've blown their stock shocks plenty of times before, have you ever heard of diagnosing this problem through measuring ride height change? Or how about aftermarket shocks that, without moving the lower spring perch, claim to change ride height? You can compress a gas charged shock shock by hand, yet on your average fwd Honda, there's over 800 lbs of static load at each corner of the front suspension.

Or have you ever heard of someone dialing out body roll with stiff shocks? Yes, they'll make a difference in roll control during corner entry due to resistance to motion, but once the car takes a set at any given cornering rate, it's the overall wheel rate + the sway bar effectiveness that determines % roll.

When you want to lower a car, you need to either move the lower spring perch down, shorten the overall height of the spring, or reduce it's rate. These are the only things that will change ride height in a coilover system, other than bent/broken suspension parts. Show me otherwise please.

 

I agree but on the extreme ends like a brand new shock and a compltely blown one, there is an effect. Why else would there be a lock on oe shocks that let you install them before the piston comes out?

Also, without the resistance to spring compression, which is one function of the shock, the spring gets all the load, resulting it sitting farther down and vice-versa. This has been proven to me.

 

Umm, Texan IS right though... shocks CONTROL the movements of the spring, they are not a load bearing piece as far as the chassis is concerned.

This is the same reason why they have no effect on and ideal steady state cornering situation, once the springs are compressed, and the suspension hits no bumps.

Dampeners do NOT support weight, they simple control springs. Hence the name