Top nuts on front dampeners

[Daveluck]

Hello,

Last time I did the shocks I guessed how tight to do the top nut as I didnt have the cutaway socket.

I still don't have the cutaway socket...and I'm wondering if I went overboard and this is why my top bearing has failed prematurely.

How important is getting the torque right? Does it massively effect the pretension of the springs that much? Or does a!couple of turns either way not make any significant difference?

Cheers

Dave

[BigRuss]

The torque figure for the top nut doesn't have to be exact it just needs to be tight.
It doesn't have that much effect on bearing, they fail because they're a poor design that's not sealed against the elements.
Before fitting new ones I always take them apart and pack them with grease because they never come with enough in them

Russ

[Daveluck]

Cheers Russ,

How easy are they to take apart and put back together?

Would lithium CV grease be OK?

[marinabrian]

They are easy to take apart and put back together, but use LM grease, not CV grease

[Mike Noc]

And make sure the lip seal is correctly fitted all the way round - last one I took off the seal had pinched inside the housing. Probably why it failed.

[Daveluck]

À

Originally Posted by marinabrian

They are easy to take apart and put back together, but use LM grease, not CV grease

Right OK, Im not sure I've got any!. I currently have 3 types of grease. 2 are in the photo and the 3rd is lithium EP CV grease which makes no reference to Moly.

Strangely I purchased the moly grease because of something you wrote in another thread! I was not expecting what turned up. I was thinking it would be white or brown.

The Spanish grease is some very sticky light brown coloured lithium grease. I tend to use this as my goto grease for when I have to go to.

Do you have a link for some non CV LM grease. Amazon has let me down....

Originally Posted by Mike Noc

And make sure the lip seal is correctly fitted all the way round - last one I took off the seal had pinched inside the housing. Probably why it failed.

It is very very gritty when I turn it by hand. I'm annoyed as these were meant to be top notch and from rimmers. So not only did I pay their highish prices are I also had to pay their sky high postage costs.

This time I've gone autodoc. Picked out some mid price stuff with 2 year guarantees. I've found autodoc to be great with returns.

Edit. Can't add a photo... How incredibly annoyi g. The LM grease I have is general purposemoly grease, then underneath says for CV joints. Its a dark grey colour.

[marinabrian]

Originally Posted by Daveluck

À

Right OK, Im not sure I've got any!. I currently have 3 types of grease. 2 are in the photo and the 3rd is lithium EP CV grease which makes no reference to Moly.

Strangely I purchased the moly grease because of something you wrote in another thread! I was not expecting what turned up. I was thinking it would be white or brown.

The Spanish grease is some very sticky light brown coloured lithium grease. I tend to use this as my goto grease for when I have to go to.

Do you have a link for some non CV LM grease. Amazon has let me down....



It is very very gritty when I turn it by hand. I'm annoyed as these were meant to be top notch and from rimmers. So not only did I pay their highish prices are I also had to pay their sky high postage costs.

This time I've gone autodoc. Picked out some mid price stuff with 2 year guarantees. I've found autodoc to be great with returns.

Edit. Can't add a photo... How incredibly annoyi g. The LM grease I have is general purposemoly grease, then underneath says for CV joints. Its a dark grey colour.

The brown stuff is what you want, the molybdenum disulphide stuff is for CV joints.

If you look at the oil seal, you will see it has small "cutouts" in the rubber, you can use a small flat blade screwdriver acting against the outer rim of the outer race to carefully prise the seal out, and remove the inner race for inspection.

Normally what causes premature failure of this part is incorrect installation, where the spring is decompressed without keeping the upper isolator parallel with the bearing.

This causes the lip of the oil seal to be damaged by the inner race.

Incidentally this is the same part used on the Freelander 1 RNR100080 and the XW Rover 214, and R3 25.

I bought new TRW lower arms from Autodoc last week and found it a very agreeable experience.

So lots of care to make sure you keep the bearing straight while decompressing the spring

Brian

[macafee2]

the struts are easy to take apart and put buck together providing you have the correct spring compressors.
Compressing the spring and releasing it is I found time consuming .

macafee2

[bl52krz]

Brian. Have you ever tried Castrol CL grease? I find it is good because it has a lot of stickiness. Sticks to bearing surfaces like it says on the tin.

[lightningmark]

Sadly Castrol CL grease is no longer available, they have replaced it with high temperature grease which is nowhere near as sticky


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk