Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Like any Spring loose a bit over time

Great Topic!

Do you keep to standard spec or go for an upgrade to encompass improvements? Keeping one's car 'stock' is an obvious option but not the best, in my opinion. Most of us owners (924, 944 etc) have upgraded our little gems with new engine oil types ie from the old 20/50 to semi synthetic options. Air Filters have also improved, with the likes of K&N - so we move with the times...

The options of suspension on the 944 is varied and somewhat confusing - I for one wanted to upgrade the basic stock items and went for the Koni Sports, front and back. I also changed the springs at the same time for the lowered Koni Sports (aka 968s). Changing the springs is important (like a mattress, their also wear out) - it brings integrity to the front suspension and adds new dimension to how the car looks.

You can REMOVE the Springs without a compressor. If you jack the suspension up on either side, then remove the sway bar coupling from the lower A frame (so the sway bar is now loose), then lower the strut assembly - the four top nuts undone obviously, the unit will fall away as you lower the unit - you now have an open spring. Fitting is the reverse to compress the spring back in place...

Dave
CT

MJL944 wrote: PLEASE PLEASE let us know the age of the struts and rears when you receive them. Hopefully you'll get a newer batch than me!

Collected the parts today and as predicted, the stock is very old. Front struts are December 2003 & springs are March 2004. Rear shocks are on back order.

Also collected a workbench, a vice, a trolley jack, an impact wrench and some spring compressors from Machine Mart. My garage now looks as it should, rather than full of boxes of crap we've never used since we moved in, nearly 3 years ago. Suppose I should make a start!

Cheers,
Bryan

Wish I'd read your post before. I have recently (ish) done the koni conversion on the front. On there softest setting they are still a bit stiff for a cab. they were simple to do. I went for them as they were cheaper than original standard like for like replacement and koni 's where an optional extra at the time, so I thought it was still inkeeping with the car. Look good too.

briggy wrote:

MJL944 wrote: PLEASE PLEASE let us know the age of the struts and rears when you receive them. Hopefully you'll get a newer batch than me!

Collected the parts today and as predicted, the stock is very old. Front struts are December 2003 & springs are March 2004. Rear shocks are on back order.

Also collected a workbench, a vice, a trolley jack, an impact wrench and some spring compressors from Machine Mart. My garage now looks as it should, rather than full of boxes of crap we've never used since we moved in, nearly 3 years ago. Suppose I should make a start!

Cheers,
Bryan

be warned, I had the same on my 968, over 10 years old...... they were knackered in less than a year.....

briggy wrote:

MJL944 wrote: PLEASE PLEASE let us know the age of the struts and rears when you receive them. Hopefully you'll get a newer batch than me!

Collected the parts today and as predicted, the stock is very old. Front struts are December 2003 & springs are March 2004. Rear shocks are on back order.

Cheers,
Bryan

Yep, exactly the same batch as my parts came from in Oct 2014 - see my old thread (with pictures of the offending parts) on PCGB forum here> https://www.porscheclubgb.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=853231

Note the 2 year warranty from Porsche plus the manufacturer stating the struts should be OK stored for that long. Once fitted, keep a regular eye on the suspension for misting or leaking fluid.
Sorry to hear the rears are on back order although that might mean a new batch is in production currently. To speed things up it might be worth trying some of the bigger Porsche parts suppliers to see if they hold some stock of the rears, unless Porsche can say the delay will only be a short one. Rose Passion in France are often spoken of highly and they seem to indicate they have the rears in stock - see here: http://www.rosepassion.com/en/cat/porsc ... orber/B179

Good luck with the fitting!

Euro car parts do the original shocks

Driver's side strut now removed. Can't believe I haven't damaged anything - not even my knuckles! Lots of rusty bolts to battle with though. Still need to disassemble it to get the top mount off. I've read enough to know that I need to compress the spring for this and not just undo the nut at the top.

Another silly question from me : how should the new should the new strut behave? What I mean is should it want to expand or contract. When I pull on it (behave) there's a fair amount of resistance, then it will tend to fall back into the housing. Is the expected? The fact that these are old stock is making question this as I'm not sure what to expect.

Cheers,
Bryan

briggy wrote:Driver's side strut now removed. Can't believe I haven't damaged anything - not even my knuckles! Lots of rusty bolts to battle with though. Still need to disassemble it to get the top mount off. I've read enough to know that I need to compress the spring for this and not just undo the nut at the top.

Another silly question from me : how should the new should the new strut behave? What I mean is should it want to expand or contract. When I pull on it (behave) there's a fair amount of resistance, then it will tend to fall back into the housing. Is the expected? The fact that these are old stock is making question this as I'm not sure what to expect.

Cheers,
Bryan

Bryan,

The new strut should have the strut rod fully out. It should be hard to push down but once pushed down it should slowly rise back out. If it falls back into the shock casing on its own accord then thats not a good sign.

pilch wrote:

briggy wrote:Driver's side strut now removed. Can't believe I haven't damaged anything - not even my knuckles! Lots of rusty bolts to battle with though. Still need to disassemble it to get the top mount off. I've read enough to know that I need to compress the spring for this and not just undo the nut at the top.

Another silly question from me : how should the new should the new strut behave? What I mean is should it want to expand or contract. When I pull on it (behave) there's a fair amount of resistance, then it will tend to fall back into the housing. Is the expected? The fact that these are old stock is making question this as I'm not sure what to expect.

Cheers,
Bryan

Bryan,

The new strut should have the strut rod fully out. It should be hard to push down but once pushed down it should slowly rise back out. If it falls back into the shock casing on its own accord then thats not a good sign.

They are gas struts and as pointed out they should be fully extended, and as described once pushed in they should extend on their own, think I would send those back as the gas has gone

Thanks guys. Not such a silly question after all. Imagine how hacked off I'd be if I put it all back together in that state.

I've left an email with OPC Tewkesbury explaining the problem. They've been very good up to this point, but I think the solution may be out of their control. Old stock is old stock.

Cheers,
Bryan

Can't add anything other than to say that Pilch and Waylander are quite correct. You shouldn't fit struts if they are as you describe. (The OPC shouldn't have sold them to you like that, come to mention it.)

Oli.

Hmmm. I feel there's a rush to condemn these struts that might be a bit premature. Bryan you say:

'When I pull on it there's a fair amount of resistance, then it will tend to fall back into the housing. Is this expected?'

If that's correct then I'm not sure why you're focusing on pulling rather than pushing. Although the rods will be in their 'fully extended position', you'd expect there to be a small amount of extra travel up to the very top as there should always be some oil above the top seal with the rod in the 'at rest' position.
How far can you actually pull? I wouldn't expect more than an inch or two of extra upwards travel.
Once pulled up you then would expect the rod to slowly sink back to its natural at rest position, so the behaviour you describe sounds right.

Much more importantly is what is happening when you press the rod down. I could press down (slowly) about 2 inches (meeting strong resistance) before the resistance made it difficult to press down any further (see my pictures in the thread I link to in my post above). Doing this left a small trace of white grease on the rod when I pulled the rod back to its at rest position.

These are VERY soft oil & gas dampers compared to more modern & 'sport' type dampers so the rod will be easier to cycle up and down than you might expect. Also note the advice from Sachs in my link above recommending you cycle the rod several times to 'purge any air that may be trapped in the base valve or piston rod valve' - so, they are supposed to be fairly easy to push up and down by hand a couple of inches either way until the natural resistance makes it impossible to move any further.

If you could confirm what you are experiencing when you push down we should be able to put your mind at rest.
Have you compared the behaviour of both your struts?
How about letting Tewkesbury have a look at them before you fit.

TBH, I think you'll be OK, but good luck getting your OPC to help once they've got your money. Mine (and Porsche UK HQ) were not interested (again, see my link to post on PCGB forum above).

Thanks for the detailed reply.

Picture 1 shows the default position i.e. where it comes to rest.
Picture 2 shows it fully compressed. It's really a hard limit as you feel it stop, rather than become more difficult.
Picture 3 shows it (almost) fully extended.
Picture 4 shows it 30 seconds after being fully extended.
It doesn't take long before it goes back to as it was in picture 1.


Both struts behave exactly the same.

I've already emailed OPC to see what they say. I expect a reply on Monday. I won't be fitting them before I get a reply - I won't have time anyway. If they're not fit for purpose, they are legally obliged to refund in full. I can't see me having to quote the Sale Of Goods Act as they seem pretty reasonable folks.

Someone mentioned earlier that they shouldn't have been supplied in this state. To be fair, they come in a closed cardboard box, so they couldn't have known.

Cheers,
Bryan

I wouldn't fit them, they should be fully extended at rest. The fact that they drop back down means they would provide little or no damping, the handling would be awful.

Have you removed a spring from your old shock yet to compare?