snitm

Yeap, turns out the middle nylon lock nut being very loose on the left rear -- so loose that the adjustment knob had no threads to stay on (fell off when I tried to adjust the rebound).

I've taken the shocks off the car again and I'll retorque in a more intelligent manner (using 5mm allen key to lock the shaft).
I've also reduced preload slightly from 12mm to 10mm, even still it is quite a lot.

Hopefully with everything torqued properly I'll be fine.

Car Analogy

Never use pliers or anything else on the smooth shock shaft. Use a box wrench and an allen key.

If you want the accuracy of a torque wrench, use a crow foot socket, set so it points sideways (that will keep torque reading accurate), along with the allen key.

B serious

Y'all are some reckless heathens.

One guy is using PLIERS on the shock shaft (!??!?!?!!?!?). That's pure insanity, bruv. If the shock is not leaking, I'll be tickled with surprise. Did you at least use the portion at the very top of the shaft where the bumpstop rides?

and an other person is using an impact on the shock shaft. This is a really really terrible idea.

What's important, though...is that I was correct AF about the noise source.

B serious

BTW, a non preloaded spring doesn't clunk when the car is sitting on it. For that to be the source of the clunk, the situation would have to be very unusual and very specific.

snitm

Haha, I didn't mar the shock shaft. And using pliers wasn't really effective anyway, precisely because I was unwilling to put too much pressure.

Anyway, everything is torqued way down now (with the use of 5mm allen key).
Won't be able to testdrive until tomorrow (hopefully). But I'm pretty sure everything is as it should be now.

(BTW, I originally put the shock in a vice and used the preload lock ring to torque down preload.. that is what caused the nylon nut to loosen originally. That was the stuff of an ultra-heathen.
But I learned the right way to set preload with this SBG howto video: And some followup email exchanges with Heath at SBG -- Heath is great.)

B serious

dAng. They're just shocks!

Putting them in a vise like they owe you money or something....

Car Analogy

Advice. Next time, figure out the right way to do things before you go hack at it and potentially cause irreparable damage.

snitm

Yeap.. shouldn't require this level of discovery to learn the "right way" (thankfully SBG has a quality video). Instructions provided with Ohlins DFV are worst than useless.

Anyway, just drove the car after getting everything properly installed. I'm happy with the result using 12kg w/ 2mm preload front and 10kg w/ 10mm preload rear. Ride is stiff but not overly so (using 16 and 14 clicks from hard, front and back respectively). Glided over some nasty New England roads quite nicely.

GSteg

I put 80 grit sandpaper between the locking plier and the shock shaft to hold it real tight because my 1200 ft-lbs impact gun kept spinning the shaft!

J/K don't do this folks.

B serious

Did you have a brotntosaurus stand on it to hold it still?