Uneven front suspension Mk3 GT6

[Mack]

Evening all,

My Gt6 has a distinct lean to the drivers side, more noticeble when viewed from the back. I think I have assertained however that the problem is coming from the front, as when jacked up solely on the front the back evens out.

While it is jacked up I can see that the drivers side wheel doesnt drop as far. I have removed the ARB and it looks resonably flat.

What else would cause the drivers side to drop less? The springs measure the same when compressed by the load of the car.

I imagine my next job will be to remove the shocks and springs and check them off the car but anything else I should look for?

The shocks are some rather tired looking spax.

Cheers

[johny]

Do the springs each measure the same length when the front wheels are off the ground? If so I can only see that the shocks are different lengths (spring bottom pan to the wishbone bush) or the spring top mountings are in different positions....

[Mack]

Hmm seems the drivers side measures 1cm shorter than the passenger side when off the ground. Will have to get them off and see how they compare off the car. Any harm in swapping them round and see what difference that makes?

[johny]

What the spring is 1cm shorter when off the ground? If so then the damper must be different and there have been cases where spring lower pans are welded on at different places so you need to measure from the pan to the lower bush on each side...

[Mack]

Just went out and re measured. Springs are the same length when the car is off the ground. Is the pan the cup where the top of the spring locates? If so the distance from there to the lower bush seems the same. I will have to spend some time getting the frame level to the ground and take some more measurements.

[johny]

Yes the spring sits in pans top and bottom and when off the ground the distance between the two is set by the maximum expansion of the damper. Need to carefully measure everything to see where the difference is coming from....

[Ian Foster]

Is it an early Rotaflex Mk3 with the 11/16" ARB, or the later swing spring version that has the 7/8" bar.

The smaller diameter bars almost always have a 'built in' set (twist). The larger ones are generally flat.

.....and nobody knows why!

I have the smaller bar on my Mk2 and would like to get the twist removed.

Ian

[johny]

Think Mac has removed the ARB☹️

[Pete Lewis]

you should always jack the car at the middle front and check for rear lean  then jack the middle rear and check

for front lean    .

what you see is not always where the problem lies 

only takes a few minutes and proves a lot 

Pete

[Mack]

Decided to examine the back suspension this morning and found the drivers side shock was very stiff. I took this opportunity to switch both rear shocks for some shorter shocks mounted to the frame instead of the body as the car has a CV joint conversion from rotoflex. 

With the car back on the ground it seems to have evened it out quite a bit. 

 

I am still slightly concerned that the drivers side front shock tower is sitting higher than the other side. It looks as if part of the tower has been persuaded out the way of the exhaust manifold and there was just under a cm in difference when measuring it this morning before I did the back. I will re measure to see if the back was throwing off the measurements at all. Changing the tower will have to be job for the future if so!