Help needed on fitting springs and dampers!

robin_xr4i · Post by **robin_xr4i** » Fri May 19, 2006 7:44 am

My lowering spring have finally arrived!

And i am going to fitted them this weekend, i have got a new set of front and rear dampers as well.

I have fitted suspension to various Escorts and a Fiesta in the past so i am confident i can fit them, But is there any thing on the 480 that is praticualy difficult or does anyone have any tips?

Any help would be much apprieciated!

(sorry my spelling is shit)

catgroom · Post by **catgroom** » Sat May 20, 2006 5:07 pm

Robin me old cocker!May as well tell you the quickest way I use then maybe u can print this off.

Jack up,Take wheel off,axle stand.

Loosen the anti roll bar links,2 17mm spanners.Put a jack under the bottom ball joint and jack up the suspension seperately until the anti roll bar link pushes through the hole in the struttus!

Loosen and remove the 2 strut nut and bolts,19mm and 5/8 I think.Remove the flexi brake hose from strut.Pull the strut away from hub.Loosen and remove the 2 13mm nuts(or bolts!) on top of strut tower.Wiggle the strut and spring free from your Turbus!

Do the biz with the coil spring compressors taking off the standard springs.When you fit 40mm lowering springs you dont need to compress them.Just put the top mount plates on top and push em down,popping the nut on a couple of turns with the other hand.

Refitting is quite liderally a reversal of removal!

Rears,jack,axle stand and wheel off time!Undo top shock bolt (16mm) and remove from the inner wing.Undo the bottom from radius arm.Take out shock.

Undo the front end bolts holding radius arm to floor.Remove the pins from the plastic discs holding bottom of spring to axle.You hammer the centre pins upwards.Push down on rear axle and remove spring.When removing yer standard springs you'll probably need to but the coil spring compressors on!

New rear springs just fall in to their places,no compressors needed.Replace radius arm front nut and bolt and shock.

Get tracking set up at front asap!

Briefish but thats how I do it matey!

Good Luck!

Groomus

robin_xr4i · Post by **robin_xr4i** » Wed May 24, 2006 7:26 am

Thanks mate, the advice was really helpful.

Only problem I ran into was lack of a 22mm spanner to do the top of the front suspension strut

Plus I only found is out once i had taken the bloody thing off, so i had to put it all back together!

So a the mo my 480 is 40mm lower at the back than it is at the front looks like a back to front drag car!

Going to halford on thursday to get the right tool for the job, cause i've got a day off.

catgroom · Post by **catgroom** » Wed May 24, 2006 5:32 pm

Nooooooo,what a bastard!

Ah mate Im glad it helped!

Dont forget to get yer tracking re-done when youve done it.Else it will wear yer tyres out on the inside really fast....

Groomus

ReVolvoLution · Post by **ReVolvoLution** » Wed May 24, 2006 6:11 pm

and you'll squeal like a stuffed pig on every corner!!!

Should only cost about a tenner as long as your track rods aint seezed up solid too

catgroom · Post by **catgroom** » Wed May 24, 2006 6:32 pm

Ah yes,there is a guy selling track rod ends on ebay at the mo.

Braydon Motor Company are still doing the track rod ends at a silly Â£11 each with the VAT plus some carriageus!

That or theres 4H Trading on ebay for some Unipart ones,and he has lots of these to shift too!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/GSJ851-Outer-Trac ... dZViewItem

Hope your spanner is clean booooooy!

ps Can someone show me how to post a link so it doesnt come out as a ridiculous long URL like this one again!Ta!

ReVolvoLution · Post by **ReVolvoLution** » Wed May 24, 2006 6:37 pm

Hyperlinkus!

catgroom · Post by **catgroom** » Mon May 29, 2006 7:21 pm

OK clever sod how do u do it?

I wanna hyper not a bog roll link!

Dan the 480 Man · Post by **Dan the 480 Man** » Mon May 29, 2006 10:23 pm

Stevus!

Press the little 'URL' button.

Inbetween the 'l' and ']' you need t ... rope Forum

Poo description i know!

If you quote this post, then you can see the forum hyperlink in it's working format.

catgroom · Post by **catgroom** » Tue May 30, 2006 7:37 pm

Thx Dan

Precision in poetic motion there me old cocker!

Marvus!

robin_xr4i · Post by **robin_xr4i** » Wed May 31, 2006 12:05 pm

Sorted all i need to do now is get the tracking done. Thanks for all the help guys!