DavyZ Posted July 10, 2003 Share Posted July 10, 2003 Stupid gland nuts...I have shortened struts just sitting soaking in PB Blaster trying free the gland nut from the rust that has enveloped the threads and everything...grrrr I swear I'm riuning the gland nut trying to take it (them) off! I may have to get a *gasp* professional to do it Davy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madmanadam Posted July 10, 2003 Share Posted July 10, 2003 jaime240z, Yes that is my car and thanks! The glad nut was a birch for me also, I used a 3 foot braker bar, which worked well for me. Did all the work on the car. Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wagz Posted July 10, 2003 Share Posted July 10, 2003 The gland nuts are a real pain in the a$$ to remove. I put 'em in a bench vice. I used plenty of penetrating oil, great amounts of heat from a propane torch, a three foot breaker bar, and a lot of four letter words when removing mine. I believe it was the judicious use of foul language that finally persuaded the nuts to loosen up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparky Posted July 10, 2003 Share Posted July 10, 2003 after many colourful words and liberal use of penetrating oil/heat/BFH/10 ft pipe... I took my struts to mineke and they pull them off for 5$ each (SUCKERS!) It was funny as sin to see the big burly guy move the entire table that my struts was attached to.....they finally put it in the hyd. pipe bender and used a plumbers wrech with a giant peice of pipe to get them loose. whew....best 20$ I spent on my project by a long shot! anywho... mike, you dont have to cut the struts down if you dont want too. you could just make a spacer for the short struts. cutting down the struts and welding them back together just = more cash and work for you. When i did my coilover setup it took my 6 hours to do all four. thats inlcuding cutting, grinding, welding and painting. I had never done it before, and was a little nervous that I was going to muck it up. But in the end it all turned out great. jump right in and follow the directions. measure five times!....cut once... be confident that you can do it. its easy breezy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spotfitz Posted July 10, 2003 Share Posted July 10, 2003 If your going to use a short strut insert(w/ spacer) without sectioning the struts make damn sure you use a bump stop. You could end up with a wasted strut insert otherwise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PETEW Posted July 10, 2003 Share Posted July 10, 2003 I always thought that sectioning the strut was just to lower the car more. If you only wanted to drop the car 2" or less then you could go with not sectioning. Maybe I'm wrong, it won't be the first time. I have a feeling I will be doing this job soon, I bought wheels that may require coilovers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gramercyjam Posted July 10, 2003 Share Posted July 10, 2003 Here is a tip you may or may not want to think about if you section your struts. Of course these tips are obvious, but critical to the success of your coil-over and sectioning project. I have done a few and seen a few that were done. A couple problems that you can run into that aren't easily fixable if you make a mistake are: When welding the housing, you want it to be as true as possible. If it isn't the shock won't go in smoothly. I put an old shock in the housing and then clamped the housing in a couple of heavy pieces of angle iron to achieve this. The second thing is if you burn through when you are welding the housing and get little bump on the inside, the shock will be very hard to get in and even harder to get out unless you smooth the inside of the housing. If you cut the housing down low so you can leave a full bead as suggested by the ground control instructions, removing and smoothing the bump can be very difficult. --John '73 FP 240Z Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ON3GO Posted July 10, 2003 Share Posted July 10, 2003 i have some hardcore bump stops from Ross. where do i put these. do i need to section my struts now? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gramercyjam Posted July 10, 2003 Share Posted July 10, 2003 They are the first thing that goes on after the gland nut. Rubber bumpstops are part of a stock setup. Those don't look any longer, and may be even shorter than stock. You can always section later if you find that need more shock travel. AFter you put it back together, do the nylon tie wrap test to find out for sure. --John '73 FP 240Z Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted July 10, 2003 Share Posted July 10, 2003 The Ground Control hats are shorter than the stock rubber hat by over an inch (at least on mine--I have the "roadrace" version". So you will drop the car an inch or an inch and a half just by eliminating the stock rubber hats. If you only want to go down 2 inches from stock, run the stock length struts. If you section the struts and then run the adjuster all the way at the top, you will have very little sag in the suspension and it will top out over bumps (this is more of a problem in the rear, since most of us seem to like a little rake). Topping out is bad, especially if you hit a big bump in the middle of a turn and you're near the limit of traction. I figured my heights on the perches this way: set the coilover so that at the top of the threaded adjuster the spring is touching the perch and the hat. I figured that would be as close to stock height as I could get. That turned out to be a bit high in the front with the adjusters all the way up. I wanted to go DOWN but with so much adjustment you should be able to find a happy place in there somewhere. Good luck, Jon Mortensen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug71zt Posted July 12, 2003 Share Posted July 12, 2003 I sectioned my struts about 1.75" to gain back suspension travel at a specific ride height. I run tall (25.") 225/45/17 tires so the car is really not that low. If you are not going to shorten the struts and run coilovers - you will not have that much suspension travel at a decent ride height - IE you will be very close to running on the bump stops. You will have to run a heavy spring to prevent bottoming out all the time. I run a 175FR/200RR and it havent bottomed yet. But - I run a 240(lighter). I run the adjuster up until the spring is just preloaded with the car off the ground - It seems to have the right suspension sag at this height. If the suspension gurus could step in - I'd like to know how much of the travel of the strut should be taken up in sag for the correct operation of the suspension. Thanks - Doug Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ON3GO Posted July 12, 2003 Share Posted July 12, 2003 well my spring rates are 225 (front), 250 (rear).... i just want to lower the car about 2 in's, and thats with a 25in tire (with the new panasports and etc). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boobala Posted July 12, 2003 Share Posted July 12, 2003 Stupid question for you guys. Instead of sectioning the struts, why can't you just lop-off the needed the length from the top of the strut tube. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ON3GO Posted July 12, 2003 Share Posted July 12, 2003 because u need to have the gland nut on top. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boobala Posted July 12, 2003 Share Posted July 12, 2003 Told you it was a stupid question Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted July 12, 2003 Share Posted July 12, 2003 Doug, Every coilover and camber plate is different. Given that Mike only wants to go down 2 inches, and my plates don't use the stock hat so they already lower the car over an inch, if he used similar plates he would not be able to section the strut and only go 2 inches below stock unless he made a spacer to sit on top of the strut assy. If you section 2 inches, and the plate gives an inch and a half, that puts you well below where Mike wanted to be. I also have a 240 and I am running 200# and 250# springs. I would think that sag should be at least 1/3 of the travel, if not a little more. Sorry, I don't have anything to back this up, just my previous years of tuning suspensions on motorcycles and cars. To be honest, even when I was prepping Porsches (just the local Porsche shop, but great experience aligning, corner weighting, modifying) no one ever asked for a specific sag setting. But those cars all ran really low and there was no point. I agree that sectioning the struts is a VERY GOOD IDEA when your car is being run at a significantly low ride height. Tom Holt has a picture of his car with sectioned struts in the full droop position http://www.ccsi.com/~tholt/shocks.htm. In the rear full droop is with the control arms only very slightly pointing down. This is not enough droop for a road car IMO, and apparently not enough for him either. He also states that he has 1 1/2" of sag. I would argue that a little more than that would be preferable for the road. In a race car (especially road race) you don't need 12 inches of travel. A smaller amount of travel with extreme control over its movement is the goal. Plus if you go past horizontal with the control arms your camber changes positively when you load the suspension. From what I have been taught it is also easier for G forces to compress the suspension with the arm pointing up than when it points down. I don't think that sectioning the struts is as necessary as some. I've never heard of people buying Euro springs or Eibach progressives then sectioning the struts to regain travel. I don't know why this would be more necessary on a coilover setup that is being used to lower a Z 2 inches. My $.02, Jon Mortensen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimZ Posted July 13, 2003 Share Posted July 13, 2003 I don't think that sectioning the struts is as necessary as some. I've never heard of people buying Euro springs or Eibach progressives then sectioning the struts to regain travel. I don't know why this would be more necessary on a coilover setup that is being used to lower a Z 2 inches. All very good points. The key with this whole thing is to get your suspenion in the middle of it's travel at your static ride height (probably somewhere in the middle 1/3 of travel is okay), ALL ELSE BE DAMNED. In other words, it doesn't matter whether you are using coilovers or stock springs, which hat, etc., you need to do whatever is necessary to get the travel centered. This means that you need to look at all of the factors that influence your ride height and suspension travel, and THEN figure out whether you need to section or not. Also, I think Jon was just using 12 inches of travel as a generic example, but we don't have nearly that much travel. Our struts generally have about 7 inches of travel, and the bump stops probably eat about an inch of that up. So at standard ride height we only have about three inches of bump travel. Drop the car two inches with springs only and you are down to about 1 inch of bump travel, maybe less. At this point you need to assess what your options are regarding regaining suspension travel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Juday Posted July 13, 2003 Share Posted July 13, 2003 Stupid question for you guys. Instead of sectioning the struts' date=' why can't you just lop-off the needed the length from the top of the strut tube.[/quote'] I don't think this is a stupid question at all. Why not just re-tap the end of the tube for the gland nut? Wouldn't this vastly simplify strut sectioning? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boobala Posted July 13, 2003 Share Posted July 13, 2003 That would be one mighty big Tap. It probably requires a Lathe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zguy95135 Posted July 15, 2003 Share Posted July 15, 2003 i have smoe pics of my coilovers, email me if you want them. you can see where the last owner welded them. zguy95135@att.net Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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