spring front axle

[jan lauwers]

Hello friends,

While my engine is out I am discovering all sorts of points that need attention, particularly on the front axle. I took the springs out, I am planning to replace some rubbers. While looking in the parts catalogue, I see that there are rubber plates UNDER the springs... .I don't have them and now I am wonderding if I am missing something?(attached drawing parts 27 and 28). I see that my lower control arm is pre-shaped to hold the bottom of the spring, so I THINK I am Ok, but this drawing now makes me doubt. Who knows this?

On a slightly different topic, I want to share my experience, since it may be of help to others: My silent blocks are totally worn out, in fact one was torn. At first I did not realize that they have TWO blots, one going in from the top, one going in from the bottom. I did not have the later one, until I released that they must have fallen into the subframe! Now I understand where this rattle was coming from! I have taken the subframe out in order to be able to hold it vertically to let the bolts fall out. Yessss here they come!

Thanks folks.
Jan

[Flyair]

Jan,
This kind of discoveries is highly educative. Good that you were able to spot the missing or worn out parts. All of those can be easily sourced for example from SLS. No doubt that installing these parts would do a lot of good to your car...

[GGR]

There are no shims under the front springs. The one showing on the picture is for the rear spring (left one on the picture shows the front spring, right one shows the rear spring - quite misleading and they appear to be on each side of the sway bar on the picture).

I guess you're talking about your engine mounts. You need to fit these bolts back into place. Together with the plates on top of the subframe mounts, they limit engine movement. Not having them may have you end up with a dent in the hood.

You should put all rubber new. The car will be transformed.

[Raymond]

Hi Jan, also be aware that the spring rubbers come in different thicknesses.  The very small differences in thickness make a big difference in ride height.  If you can read the part numbers on the old spring rubbers, you can get the right replacements.  If not, but your springs are original, they may still retain the paint marks that the factory put on them to indicate the correct rubber thickness.  I don't have the code in front of me but the paint colors and number of marks tell the tale.  If all of that fails, you can buy the thinnest spring rubber and if you need to increase the thickness to raise the ride height, you can use flange gaskets to make up the difference.  There are good threads on this site with the details.

[jan lauwers]

Thanks GGR, now I understand, I should have figured this out.
Raymond…thanks, this is interesting info. I do have color codes painted on the front springs, but I thought this was something that the PO had done, and I did not realize they mean something. Strangely, the upper rubbers of the front springs look very new, so I presume these have been replaced. I believe the color codes are white red and blue, I will go and take a look and perhaps post a pic here.
I will look for the threads on the topic. All new to me! I was going to put them back in as is, since these top rubbers look so new.
Thanks for the help!

Jan

[stickandrudderman]

There's a high likelihood that the rubbers were replaced to compensate for reduced ride height caused by tired springs.