SACHS DAMPERS REBUILDS

[Gazza]

Planning on getting my dampers serviced soon and wanted to know what people have been doing with regard to alignment after the re-build. I had the camber set to standard when I bought the car as it was off, out of the factory. Mark fish did this and rather than fitting camber bolts he adjusted the whole sizes to get the correct camber. Would it be possible to measure the camber myself? And if so would I need any specific tools?

Cheers

 

[Rhod.L15]

Notice in the last few months the ride/handling on 399 has deteriorated quite badly, so my dampers will need to go off to BG soon. Add that to the cambelt service coming up in 3k and it's an expensive few months coming up.

Where have people had the dampers taken off and then had the car stored whilst the dampers are away? I think my local Renault dealer may be able to do it but then I'd probably be looking at an extra £150 to have them taken off, sent away via courier and then re-fitted.

Any advice appreciated!

Rhod

 

[George K]

Planning on getting my dampers serviced soon and wanted to know what people have been doing with regard to alignment after the re-build. I had the camber set to standard when I bought the car as it was off, out of the factory. Mark fish did this and rather than fitting camber bolts he adjusted the whole sizes to get the correct camber. Would it be possible to measure the camber myself? And if so would I need any specific tools?

Cheers

I now use a proper camber guage, but used to get suprisngly accurate results with a spirit level held vertically against the rims. Use a spacer at the bottom so that it clears the tyres and measure the gap (less the thickness of the spacer) at the top to get the bubble central. On a 16" rim, 1 degree = 7.1 mm - therefore 1mm = 8.5 minutes (60 minutes to one degree).

 

[eljeffo64]

Making sure - I guess - the car is on flat level ground to start with?

 

[George K]

Making sure - I guess - the car is on flat level ground to start with?

Absolutely, my DC5 was set up by one of the better known specialists, and when I checked it, it was miles out at the rear - can only conclude it was because their workshop floor was not level. They took their kit out of service for a while as a result!
Can also check the floor with the spirit level and a length of straight wood. I use my neighbour's garage as we measured his floor to be much more level than mine!

 

[Cue]

George - I love that.... I can just picture their faces lol...

I need to get mine done (again) i'm certain since I had all the work done, things are not right.... it tramlines a bit more now and goes just about anywhere it wants when i want to when braking hard... Until having the dampers serviced and ball joints replaced it was ok...

 

[eljeffo64]

Making sure - I guess - the car is on flat level ground to start with?

Absolutely, my DC5 was set up by one of the better known specialists, and when I checked it, it was miles out at the rear - can only conclude it was because their workshop floor was not level. They took their kit out of service for a while as a result!
Can also check the floor with the spirit level and a length of straight wood. I use my neighbour's garage as we measured his floor to be much more level than mine!

So - inspired by your post, and the spirit of adventure, I made a tool for measuring/setting up (roughly) my camber on the T after fitting the solid mounts and correction bolts - and, I hasten to add, before going to get it set up by laserman down the road. See the H. Robinson camber guage photo below:

I set it to neg 2 both sides and was out by + 0.25 degs nearside and - 0.3 degs offside ; not bad eh! proves the garage floor is fairly good anyway :lol:

 

[Cue]

rear tail light of a porky?

 

[eljeffo64]

10 out of 10 ; bonus point for guessing the exact model - no cheating!

 

[Drew196]

C4S or C2S ??

 

[George K]

eljeffo64 -Well done, such a cheap solution - your difference could be because the car settled after you first measured it. I always run the car backwards and forwards a couple of times between any geometry changes and apply the brakes firmly (or even after just jacking it up for a wheel change etc)- the stiffer the suspension the more necessary to do this.

The other trick is to measure the camber before you start, so you know how much change you want - then when jacked up measure the camber again. It will be miles out, but at least you now know by how much to alter it and so can measure it whilst still up in the air. Do this by putting the spirit level up against the brake disc - you will need to recalculate the mm per degree as the disc diameter is less than for the wheel, but as a short cut just pro rate the numbers for 16". I measure the gap with digital callipers. all good fun and very cheap.

You can also do toes with string (fishing line is ideal) and callipers, but there is a discrepancy because the tracks front and rear are normallly different (even if nominally the same). Even with tracking gauges I still use string to do the thrust angle and centre the steering.

 

[eljeffo64]

C4S or C2S ??

997 C2S with (if you are really eagle eyed) sports exhaust (note different twin pipe diameters), normally, as in this case, signifying sports chrono package.

Top of the class, well done

 

[tallandy]

Hello guys,

Pretty certain now that at least my left damper is shot, I posted a while back with some photos and since them I cleaned them up.

Left Damper!


The right damper is completely clean! The left damper is certainly leaking oil now. Further more this weekend I went to the Evo Triangle for a good blast and under hard acceleration you get a vibration like the cars shaking when it comes on cam. And I think the nail in the coffin was on a roundabout on the way home I pushed quite hard and there was some bouncing all the way round which I know is not normal.

I jacked the car up this morning and both dampers still have the gap but when I lowered the car back down on the oil covered damper it made a lovely sloshing noise needless to say I think its time to send them off!

Are the dampers quite easy to remove? If so I'll probably just leave the car on my driveway on axle stands, or try and source some 182 dampers, do they fit okay without any extra parts?

Thanks,

Andy

 

[marrow]

sports chrono package.

... am not a fan of the scp, are you?

 

[eljeffo64]

Not a fan of the timer malarky, but scp gives a different throttle mapping as well as the loud pipe that works with PASM's stiffer damping lowered ride height - so for that I like it.

My pipes are permanently louder as I disconnected the plug that powers the PSE valve - like that it's louder than "sport" also without the quiet portion between 2 - 3 k rpm that is there for noise reg measurement

Sorry for thread hi-jack ......!!

 

[PB.283]

Booked mine in for doing, earliest was June 8th!!

Got some old and slightly knackered 182 dampers to fit so as to keep the car running but it won't be doing more than a 2 mile round trip in the time they are off!!

Just debating whether to replace the rears at the same time too!! Anyone know the exact price??

 

[Sam_K]

Is it safe to drive if the dampers have failed or is there risk of damaging them? Obviously not going bannanas on track or anything like that?

Just debating whether to replace the rears at the same time too!! Anyone know the exact price??

Im planning to have mine done in the summer and was going to do this as well as a whole suspension 'freshen up'

 

[hoolio]

I think I would keep driving on it to a minimum, it seems as though there is an increased risk of snapping a spring as well.

 

[trophy380]

I've booked mine in today with Ben. Have to wait until the 9th of June and will take about 3 days by the time I get them back. I've known the front offside has been leaking for a while but it wasn't until today that I noticed that the car is down heavily on the front offside. I went out and measured it and the nearside was about 2.5" and the offside was about 1.5"! I'm a little worried now that it may damage the spring as I have to use the car everyday to go back and fourth to work, or do you guys think it will be OK as long as I take it easy?

Thinking about it as it's down on one side would that necessarily mean it's only due to the damper leaking or could it be that one of the springs has broken?

Also is it worth me getting them un-pinned?

 

[hoolio]

I would expect extra noise from that side if a spring was broken but maybe not, best to get the wheel off and have a look. Personally I wouldn't drive with a broken spring, it doesn't matter how easy you take it you still have to go around corners which transfers almost all weight to that corner.