Puma front springs question

[rbgwynne]

Don't hate me if this has been asked before. I did search for spring realted questions and got over 1500 hits...

Basically I am wonding about the amount of comression that the front strut springs are under when fully extended. I've done struts on Toyota's and BMW's and generally the front springs take quite a bit of force to comress. I was inspecting the GF's Puma (50K miles) yesterday and with the front wheels off the ground I can raise the wheels quite easily about 3 inches or more. Are the springs shot? A carefull inspection didn't uncover a broken spring.

The reason for checking this was because she hit a massive hole and has been complaining about a lot of knocking on the NS ever since. Raising and lowering the wheel seems to have no damping going on so I suspect she's killed the shock absorber on the NS. There is obvious damping on the O/S.

If any of this is just normal Puma behaviour, please let me know before I start replacing the struts, top mounts and bearings.

Cheers,

Rob

 

[ElDude at Allison Automotive]

you won't be able to check the suspension just by seeing how much it rises when jacking..it odes take a fair amount of lifting before the tyre clears the floor...that normal..

do you have the original ford springs fitted?

knocking at the front can often be the anti-roll bar bushes...can you pull the bat through the bush a little?

 

[zinc2000]

Even when jacked up I think you will find the spring is still under a certain amount of pressure, doubt you should be able to lift the wheel by hand very much.

Has the seal on the shock maybe gone?...visible oil would be a giveaway....big pothole will trash shocks easily, simple bounce test should point you in the right direction.

el dude has methinks misunderstood your query a little....mind you his reference to bats and bushes is interesting :grin:

 

[rbgwynne]

I found this in another post

Nominal height from wheel center to top of wheel arch, measured at wheel centerline:
Front - 375mm
Rear - 378mm

Just measured GF’s and got
O/S front - 340mm
N/S front - 340mm
O/S rear - 350mm
N/S rear - 360mm

I'm pretty sure it's all stock too. Also worth mentioning that with the front wheels off the ground I can turn the springs in their seats by 1/4 - 1/2 inch.

 

[Si7]

Hmm, did my front top mounts a couple of weeks back, the springs were under a lot of pressure when the shock was off the car, no way you could compress it or lift the wheel much when fully extended. Also when I released the spring clamps after fitting the new top bearing I noticed the spring had rotated slightly, had to fully re-compress it to turn & seat the spring, don't know how you are doing it on the car! Can only guess you have non standard shorter springs fitted?

 

[rbgwynne]

What's the feeling on using lowering springs with standard shocks? I'm thinking specifically using the existing springs with a set of KYB Excel-G shocks. I am assuming that the car has lowering springs as opposed to ones that are simply too short. I don't have any experience with lowering springs though. I would have assumed that they weren't a lot shorter, just take more compression to reach theirpreload point.

 

[rbgwynne]

Having done some off-site reading, it seems there are big arguments on both side of the lowering debate. Since GF is not a speed junkie, I recon I will simply replace front shocks and springs with original.

 

[Si7]

Sounds like a plan. The standard set up is excellent, you'll probably notice an increase in ride quality too if someone has simply "bunged" on a pair of lowered stiffer springs, Ford R&D didn't spend £££££££ developing the excellent chassis only to be out done by a pair of cheapo Ebay springs I presume..