Coilover Seasonal Cleaning
If your like me you live in a rather nasty climate for cars. Winter with all it's salt and sand is not friendly to automotive parts. Add to this mix a threaded coilover suspension wear the fine threads are free to collect all kinds of debris and you've got problems. But you can drive your coilover all year with some careful preparation. If your smart you use your height adjustment to raise your car for snow clearance in the winter and lower it again for the summer months. When you do this it is key that you properly clean and prepare your coilovers to survive the season.
The following is the preparation that I preformed to lower my car for the summer. The winter prep is the reverse of this process with some slight differences.
Tools You
Will Need.
Spray Nine cleaner (or some other water soluble cleaner-degreaser)
WD-40
Rust proofing spray
Anti-Seize compound
Measuring tape
Spanners
Tooth brush (or small stiff nylon cleaning brush) (not shown)
Cleaning
This
is what the suspension looked like when I began. Last fall I had hosed
everything down with the "Rust Check". This stuff turns to a gel as it
sets and the gel collects dirt. But it protects the threads, which is
good.
None of this dirt
is in the threads yet, but it will be if we try and move the spring perch
with
getting everything VERY clean. So start be cleaning the threads under the
spring perch. Hose them down with some "Spray Nine" and scrub with a small
cleaning brush or and old STIFF tooth brush. Don't use a brass or other
kind of wire brush as it will scratch the threads and encourage corrosion.
You will need to periodicly spray more and clean your brush. At this point
we still don't want to clean above the spring perch as this might wash some dirt
and grit down into the threads. We'll get that later.
When
you have it pretty clean then wash it off with the hose. Do so quick
drying with a rag, then finish with the WD-40. This will get rid of the
water. and voila! Now you need to put on some anti seize to protect the
threads. First wipe excess WD-40 as it will prevent the anti-seize from
sticking to the threads. The liberally brush the anti seize over all the
the threads that might be used. Get as high as you can under the spring
perch.
Height Adjustment
Now it's time to
lower. Using the spanners break the two rings loose (or loosen the lock
screw
on a Ground Control type system) and rotate the lower ring down. Use a
tape measure to measure the distance between the upper and lower ring.
This will be the amount you will be lowering. However this is not very
accurate and for racers, or the demanding enthusiast, you should still have the
car corner weighted every time you change the ride height. Once you have
it at the correct distance put a piece of tape on the lower ring so that you can
keep it lined up. You will always bump this and move it so the tape is
somewhat important.
Now you can lower
the upper ring to meet the lower one. As you do the preload will come off
the spring
and
you should be able to move it around to clean behind it. Use a rag to do
this so that you don't wash any dirt into the threads between the rings and the
sleeve. Lock the two rings together to secure them. To finish off
spray some Rust Check onto the upper threads, and anywhere else that doesn't
have anti-seize on it. As one last step lift the sleeve off it's perch on
the shock and spray some Rust Check inside, as water often gets in here.
That's it now your ready for another 6 months or more!
