yay another spring install this saturday
- Thread starter Astral
- Start date
Awesome! Anytime in the morning/noon is good. I was thinking starting at 10-11am or so. Bring those flexible breaker bars/ratchets you have just in case?
I'll PM you my address in Waltham.
10 works for me. How about you Chris?
Will bring my tools and stuff. Least I could do for the claying and waxing you did. Maybe pick up those sways?
Sure, pick up the sways too! Just remember to ask
That was me. Unless there was another time. How shocking it'll be. We can start Friday night if you like.
My bad,
- :
- 92 & 16 Meyatas
oleg< i have a meeting in the mroning, maybe i could come by...pm me your addy please
Me too
Went pretty smooth. Pulled out the old springs and put the stockers back. Oleg had a spring compressor but it was useless. We went to autozone and got another. Had some coffee and donuts, then ordered in some lunch. I left about 2, Oleg and Chris were working on his stereo, tunning.
Pretty good morning. Got some tips when I change out my coilovers in the miata next spring. Picked up my "new" sways from Oleg, his old ones off the RX8 for my miata.
Pretty good morning. Got some tips when I change out my coilovers in the miata next spring. Picked up my "new" sways from Oleg, his old ones off the RX8 for my miata.
it was a great time! Thanks so much for your help Bruce and chris! We got it done in 3 hours, including 30 mins of messing with the poorly designed spring compressor. I'm going to sell/give that compressor away.
Mark, I didn't see your post about the address in time. You can always call me to find out.
I'll post some pics later.
Mark, I didn't see your post about the address in time. You can always call me to find out.
I'll post some pics later.
Here are the pics (click for fullsize):
Sorry the rear wheels were really dirty! I did clean them up later tonight.
I did take her for a drive. Everything is sold! No pops even! Though the alignment is all messed up.
I went to a local NTB to get it aligned tonight and the tech put it up and said that the alignment settings were all messed up and all over the place (to be expected), but he couldn't align it because the adjustments were "maxed out" (don't think so) and he suggested I look into camber plates or drop spindles (only seen those discussed in context of trucks). He wasn't even getting a caster reading from the machine. He said he could fix the front toe but it would get back to be all messed up after driving around some on hard ground. I don't believe him--the car is back to close to stock height, it should be adjustable back into the stock range.
Front right toe was 1.13deg out, which is way out of spec, and left toe was 0.53deg in, which is not that great either. Rear camber was -1.6 deg on the left, -2.2deg on the right (which is not great, but not terrible either).
Anyways, I'm probably going to end up hitting Liberty Mazda up first thing Monday morning to get the car aligned proper.
The stock springs feel very solid. The shocks make a huge difference. It's certainly more comfortable over bumps--the car doesn't bottom out so easily anymore, like it did with my previous setup.
Sorry the rear wheels were really dirty! I did clean them up later tonight.
I did take her for a drive. Everything is sold! No pops even! Though the alignment is all messed up.
I went to a local NTB to get it aligned tonight and the tech put it up and said that the alignment settings were all messed up and all over the place (to be expected), but he couldn't align it because the adjustments were "maxed out" (don't think so) and he suggested I look into camber plates or drop spindles (only seen those discussed in context of trucks). He wasn't even getting a caster reading from the machine. He said he could fix the front toe but it would get back to be all messed up after driving around some on hard ground. I don't believe him--the car is back to close to stock height, it should be adjustable back into the stock range.
Front right toe was 1.13deg out, which is way out of spec, and left toe was 0.53deg in, which is not that great either. Rear camber was -1.6 deg on the left, -2.2deg on the right (which is not great, but not terrible either).
Anyways, I'm probably going to end up hitting Liberty Mazda up first thing Monday morning to get the car aligned proper.
The stock springs feel very solid. The shocks make a huge difference. It's certainly more comfortable over bumps--the car doesn't bottom out so easily anymore, like it did with my previous setup.
Ok, update.
Alignment at the dealer today revealed a problem. Everything is fine except for the front camber: the bushings on the lower control arms are seized up and will barely move. While things were fine with my lowering springs, the best tech could get out at stock height was slight positive camber on the left, and slight negative on the right. And he had to impact hammer it pretty darn good to get there. The reason this wasn't a problem during the last alignment is that the cams had just enough adjustment to work with the lowering to get the settings I wanted.
Apparently they don't use anti-seize at the factory in the camber cams, and so what happens is that the sleeve inside the bushing that contains the camber bolt seizes up. The problem is that you can't just replace the bushings, you have to replace the entire lower control arm. Which is $550 in parts (MSRP), plus 5 hours labor, so I'm looking at a nice $1000 repair bill to do this. I'm not confident I can do the labor myself, because getting the existing cam bolt will require torching, hammering, etc (which will ruin the bushing, which is why the LCA needs to be replaced), and I don't think I have the tools to get the job done. The tech said that they usually replace these under warranty, but I'm 3.7K over warranty. Once the LCAs are replaced, I'll be able to do all the alignment adjustments I ever want again. I drove 2.5 years before this happened. I don't know if the frequent alignments exacerbated the problem (I think the opposite would be the case).
The tech said that he puts on antiseize on the cam bolts, so that this problem doesn't occur again (or at least not for a much longer time). The camber adjustments bolts are right there, in the front path of the salt spray from the roads, so I can definitely see how the New England driving conditions accelerate the seizing.
SO. I would suggest that any RX-8 owners (and probably NC Miata owners too, since those have a similar suspension design) that drive the car in the winter replace the camber cams before they seize up, and put antiseize on them. For a brand new car, you can probably just take the bolt out, put antiseize on it and put the bolt back in, but for a car with some miles on it, it's worth replacing the cam bolt (according to the tech). When replacing the cam, the tech suggested using some sandpaper or wire brush to get any rusty spots out and smooth out the sleeve.
Holy s*** though, that's an expensive repair bill.
Alignment at the dealer today revealed a problem. Everything is fine except for the front camber: the bushings on the lower control arms are seized up and will barely move. While things were fine with my lowering springs, the best tech could get out at stock height was slight positive camber on the left, and slight negative on the right. And he had to impact hammer it pretty darn good to get there. The reason this wasn't a problem during the last alignment is that the cams had just enough adjustment to work with the lowering to get the settings I wanted.
Apparently they don't use anti-seize at the factory in the camber cams, and so what happens is that the sleeve inside the bushing that contains the camber bolt seizes up. The problem is that you can't just replace the bushings, you have to replace the entire lower control arm. Which is $550 in parts (MSRP), plus 5 hours labor, so I'm looking at a nice $1000 repair bill to do this. I'm not confident I can do the labor myself, because getting the existing cam bolt will require torching, hammering, etc (which will ruin the bushing, which is why the LCA needs to be replaced), and I don't think I have the tools to get the job done. The tech said that they usually replace these under warranty, but I'm 3.7K over warranty. Once the LCAs are replaced, I'll be able to do all the alignment adjustments I ever want again. I drove 2.5 years before this happened. I don't know if the frequent alignments exacerbated the problem (I think the opposite would be the case).
The tech said that he puts on antiseize on the cam bolts, so that this problem doesn't occur again (or at least not for a much longer time). The camber adjustments bolts are right there, in the front path of the salt spray from the roads, so I can definitely see how the New England driving conditions accelerate the seizing.
SO. I would suggest that any RX-8 owners (and probably NC Miata owners too, since those have a similar suspension design) that drive the car in the winter replace the camber cams before they seize up, and put antiseize on them. For a brand new car, you can probably just take the bolt out, put antiseize on it and put the bolt back in, but for a car with some miles on it, it's worth replacing the cam bolt (according to the tech). When replacing the cam, the tech suggested using some sandpaper or wire brush to get any rusty spots out and smooth out the sleeve.
Holy s*** though, that's an expensive repair bill.
