10 replies to this topic

[Ludeless]

I replaced the entire suspension (down to each piece of hardware) back in Oct/Nov last year and over the past 6 weeks or so it's been getting progressivily louder. I will get a lot of loud squeaking and some clunks when driving over even very small bumps around town or on the highway. Initially i thought it may be due to the cold weather causing the dash to squeak but after i heard it driving through a parking deck w/ the window down i decided to look into the problem this weekend.

Everything appears to be fine near the wheel...all the ball joints are fine, everything is tight, etc.. So i open the hood and look at the strut towers. the 3 bolts that attach the strut to the tower are very tight and the nut w/ nylon thread holding the main rod is also tight (it does spin along w/ the top rubber piece that it contacts with, but i think it always did this....is this normal?)

I looked under the top rubber piece and there looks to be some rubber shavings on both sides of the fronts....maybe from the washer piece or spring seat i'm guessing. I want to have some spring compressors on hand before i take out the strut so need to borrow some this week.

Another strange thing is that I can push one of the front corners down and there seems to be some vertical play with the strut assembly which i'm guessing is causing the lound clunks on the deeper bumps i hit.


I have Bilstien HD's and IPD/TME Sport Springs....not sure if the fact that they're lowering springs would cause any problems. I definitely didn't notice the noise at all for the first month or 2 after changing, so i'm guessing something is just worn down. Any thoughts on this?

Thanks

[the underlørd]

I have Bilstien HD's and IPD/TME Sport Springs....Any thoughts on this?

Thanks

i think those are the worst shocks to put on a volvo.

I had that exact setup on my S70, and it drove me insane... harshest ride ever.

[erikv11]

http://volvospeed.com/vs_forum/index.php?showtopic=32686

you need new spring seats. HDs seem to eat them up.

Which brand did you install?

[Ludeless]

http://volvospeed.com/vs_forum/index.php?showtopic=32686

you need new spring seats. HDs seem to eat them up.

Which brand did you install?

When i did the suspension last year, i put in all new spring seats and new strut mounts. I got the ones from FCP Groton but don't recall the exact brand off the top of my head.

I can understand HD's being a bit harsher and rough (which i don't mind too much)...but would them wearing out from brand new parts in 3 months be normal? Less than 5000 miles on the car...and even w/ crappy pothole ridden streets of Michigan, that seems too quick for them to go out.

From what i remember the new strut mounts seemed to allow the center part that interfaces w/ the spring seat to rotate. I thought that there were bearings in there to allow for this... Is this normal or should it not spin at all?

Thx

[prasamin]

that top nut should not spin.

i concur that you have a shot spring seat, but an even better bet would be that the strut mount is shot, since it's spinning.

get it fixed before your entire struts come through your hood.

Oh, and throw away your HD's and slap on some Konis !

[erikv11]

When i did the suspension last year, i put in all new spring seats and new strut mounts. I got the ones from FCP Groton but don't recall the exact brand off the top of my head.

yeah, me too, maybe the Boge (OEM?) are better than whatever they're selling us. Mine were COMPLETELY gone at 30k but they may have been gone sooner - wife was driving the car.

I can understand HD's being a bit harsher and rough (which i don't mind too much)...but would them wearing out from brand new parts in 3 months be normal? Less than 5000 miles on the car...and even w/ crappy pothole ridden streets of Michigan, that seems too quick for them to go out.

that seems really quick. one guy was posting on here about just one spring seat going out really quick twice in a row, so maybe a suspension issue can cause it. He mentioned that he didn't adjust his springs to 11.81 inches before tightening when he put them back together. I know the first time a shop put them together for me and they didn't measure them (didn't go back there ) and I was too dumb to know they hadn't - so I am still suspicious if that contributed but I dunno. Like, if the spring isn't compressed enough, the strut will take the brunt of a pothole rather than the spring? I also wondered if my springs were just worn out so the struts were taking too much load, but that wouldn't hold for you.

Bottom line is, that strut shaft is pushing too hard against the spring seat, which could be because the spring isn't doing its job, and/or because the strut is providing more resistance than the spring seat can handle. I can imagine that for HDs, but from my TCs too?

From what i remember the new strut mounts seemed to allow the center part that interfaces w/ the spring seat to rotate. I thought that there were bearings in there to allow for this... Is this normal or should it not spin at all?

I think I know what you're talking about, and it is totally normal. I noticed the same thing when I CAREFULLY put everything together last time (Fall 05). The rubber "splines" on the spring seats don't prevent the seats from spinning in the mount before you put it all back together, I remember that clearly. But when you put it all together and the spring compressors are removed, the spring forces the seat into the strut mount, and I think at that point (I don't remember this part) only the mount bearing can rotate. I think your new strut mounts are fine.

[prasamin]

when it's not installed, then it may spin, but I'm pretty sure that once everything is bolted up it shouldnt spin, right?

[Ludeless]

that seems really quick. one guy was posting on here about just one spring seat going out really quick twice in a row, so maybe a suspension issue can cause it. He mentioned that he didn't adjust his springs to 11.81 inches before tightening when he put them back together. I know the first time a shop put them together for me and they didn't measure them (didn't go back there ) and I was too dumb to know they hadn't - so I am still suspicious if that contributed but I dunno. Like, if the spring isn't compressed enough, the strut will take the brunt of a pothole rather than the spring? I also wondered if my springs were just worn out so the struts were taking too much load, but that wouldn't hold for you.

What do you mean adjust the springs to 11.81 inches? We didn't do that (at least didn't specifically measure anything) when changing the suspenstion stuff...

[erikv11]

What do you mean adjust the springs to 11.81 inches? We didn't do that (at least didn't specifically measure anything) when changing the suspenstion stuff...

look at a Haynes, they have a nice picture, or go to step 7 of the the pinned strut replacement link.

When you put the spring on the strut, and then the spring seat and strut mount on the top, there is a whole range (more than an inch I think) of thread space to choose from at the top of the strut. Wherever you tighten that cross-shaped nut to, that determines your max spring length when the car is at rest. Or to put it another way, whatever length you compress the spring to before reassembly, determines where in the thread space you will tighten the cross-shaped nut to. For a stock spring, that length is supposed to be exactly 11.81 inches which is 30 centimeters.

Imagine if the springs on both sides weren't compressed to the same length before you cranked down the star nut and put them back in, suppose one spring was way shorter than the other - your car body would be sitting at an angle relative to the wheels, one headlight lower than the other. I'm pretty sure it is designed to ride level .

You have sport springs, which I don't know anything about, but probably there is a set length they should be adjusted to, or an acceptable range of lengths, I dunno. But for sure, both springs should be the same length.

[Ludeless]

Finally got around to pulling the front struts out this weekend.. and you were right. Spring seats were completely shot...the metal piece was not attached at all to the main rubber body. Same case for both sides:







When we changed the springs/struts before we didnt' measure 30cm on the springs. We just compresed them as much as possible and tightened the strut mount fittng to the bottom of the threads on the strut...The same was done for both sides so the car was level left to right. Maybe they were overcompressed??? Would overcompressed springs cause the spring seat to wear out this quickly?

I had the old spring seats that were originaly on the car so i'm going to put those back on today. One of them just had a small rip starting and the other one looked pretty new. I'm wondering how long these will last...


My sway bar links looked a little rough too. I also replaced these w/ new ones when i did the job 3-4 months ago. I couldn't see any grease or anything leaking from the boot, it just looked like it wasn't really attached that well to the metal.






Thx

[Ludeless]

Another interesting thing...i used to have some vibration around 40-55mph which i thought was an unbalanced wheelat first...got it balanced after i had the new suspension put on and it didnt' help. I then rotated the wheels and it did help a lot (moved the bulk of the vibration to around 70mph)....

However, now that i have the new'ish spring seats on, the vibration is back just like it always was. I'm thinking 1 or more of the crappy rims on this car are bent. I wonder if vibration from this would also contribute to killing a spring seat quickly.

What do you guys think?