How to get a stuck koni adjuster un-stuck

[RebekahsZ]

Installed my new konis over the last month or so, fighting thru all the little obstacles slowly but surely.  When done, everything seemed well, but I didn't try to adjust the shocks and didn't go for a test drive.  Ride height was low so I changed springs and increased my ride height with some pre-load.  Before the test drive decided to set all 4 shocks to full soft but found one of the four shock adjustment tabs seized.  The tab is a very delicate looking flat-sided pin that you put an equally delicate-looking plastic knob on temporarily to do the adjusting.  The knob wouldn't budge, but knowing how delicate it all looks I didn't get all gorilla on it.  Instead, I googled it.  All I found were stories of folks in the same situation who called koni tech, were told to force it, and they broke off the pin.  Didn't find anybody who had successfully solved the problem.  I do not know if the adjuster was jammed right out of the box-I stupidly hadn't checked.

 

I carefully put a crescent wrench on the pin and felt and watched the action of the pin and found that the pin was not stuck at the top.  I could feel a spring tension build when I twisted it, suggesting that the pin was part of a thin rod that perhaps reached some distance down into the shock to actuate a rotating valve of some kind.  Back to google.  After reading more stories of attempted remedies resulting in broken shocks, I finally found an old article in a Volkswagen forum that suggested that the air impact wrench was the culprit; that the impact tightens the valve (indirectly via inertia) at the same time that it tightens the shock to the camber plate.

 

I had no way of knowing if the valve was tightened in the firm or soft direction, but got a hint when I noticed that the shock had compressed.  I pulled up on the strut rod and boy, it was tough to pull up.  Concluded it was stuck in the firm direction.  Looked at things and decided that impact in the loosen direction would loosen any valve inside the shock that might be stuck in the firm direction.  I used the strut rod nut and lock nut and a good bit of torque to lock them up good and tight on the rod.  Then used the impact wrench in the loosen direction a few brrrraaaps, checking the adjuster knob after each, and eventually YEAH!  it loosened up and could be moved throughout its full 2-1/2 turns from firm to soft.

 

Now it is time to re-install (and avoid the same mistake).  I set the shock to full soft.  Brraap to tighten shock to camber plate, then re-set the shock to soft (it had tightened in the firm direction as expected), then brrraap to set the lock nut, then re-set to soft (the adjuster had moved in the firm direction again).  How did we live before Al Gore invented the internet?  On to the next z-car challenge!

Edited January 13, 2014 by RebekahsZ

[Phantom]

I'm currently running my Konis at the middle set point.  I initially had then on full firm and,  man - they were really firm.  My kidneys and head would consider that a track only setting.