Huh? This isn't right. The front and rear shock assemblies are both similar at the top. They have 1 nut that holds the upper plate and spring on the shock and 2 studs that extend through the body of the car.

 

Gloffer, thanks for the clarification. So when you say "the spring just fits in the strut", is the spring tightly fitted between the upper and lower plates of the strut housing before installing it back on to the car? Or is it loosely fitted and requires the weight of the car to hold it in place?

 

The spring just hangs loose on the rear strut. You kind of wiggle the bottom of the rear strut assembly into place as it's being held loosely at the top by the upper nut inside the trunk. When it gets into place you insert the lower "A" arm bolt, but don't tighten it down completly. You can then tighten down the upper nut that's inside the trunk. Now you find a good place under the lower "A" arm to place your floor jack (maybe with a piece of wood on it). Lift that corner of the car so that the floor jack/"A" arm is carrying that corner's weight. Now tighten up the upper and lower "A" arm bolts to the specified torque.

Because you tighten the hold-down nut on the fronts before you install the strut assembly into the car, the front is on there a little tight, but by no means is it fully compressed. Once the front strut assembly is fitted in the car, then you do the floor jack routine to load the suspension before tighten the "A" arm attachment bolts.

gernby,
I don't have my Helms in front of me, but from what I remember the rear strut installation was a little different at the top than the fronts. I remember the rear spring just being loose on the strut. During installation it was kind of a pain to ensure the spring was in the lower strut mounting slot since it was just flopping around on the strut.

Whereas with the fronts, we installed the spring on the strut and then tightened down on the upper mounting nut, thus the spring was firmly attached to the strut during installation. We didn't torque any of bolts or nuts to their final torques until we had loaded the suspension.

 

I will be lowering my car this weekend with the kg/mm race springs. I was wondering if any of you have modifed the bump stops at all? I thought it was usually a "must do"when lowering the car?

 

no need to modify the bump stops.

 

Thanks iCEE. Is there a specific reason why we don't have to? I forget the reason why you're supposed to on other cars.

 

i don't know. i guess some bump stops are too big for the drop, so they need to be trimmed.

 

I thought it had something to do with the ride quality, and shaving down the bump stops was supposed to help.

Anyway, as long as I know I don't have to do it, that's all I need. Thanks again!

 

The bump stops are there to keep the suspension from moving beyond a certain point. They also serve as a last-ditch cushion when the suspension bottoms out, but it's still quite a jolt. Some cars when lowered are too close to bottoming out, and will hit the bump stops often. So, they trim down the bump stops so they can get away with a little more suspension travel before bottoming out. Whether or not this "improves" ride quality is debatable. Whether or not it's beneficial (or safe) to allow this extra travel is also debatable. Trimming the bump stops also means that when you eventually do bottom out over a big bump, the jolt will be even worse, because the bump stop has less ability to absorb/cushion the impact.

 

So you're saying we should leave them on? I thought more suspension travel was usually not good?