Fitting new springs

[Adam_NAclubman]

Is it easy enough to do?

I picked up my new Kings for my Clubman the other day (In a Fulcrum box, but I suppose theyre just rebranded Kings) and am planning to fit them tomorrow, in the workshop manual it seems that you just unbolt the struts, pull them out, compress the springs, take them out, then do the reverse to fit the new ones?

[Li7hium]

Never done it myself, but I found this thread using the Search funtion.

Should cover your query I believe!

[fd3s]

yeh thats the way but be very careful when you uncompress the springs - can be very dangerous...

[Adam_NAclubman]

Well they're in..... Front looks lower, rear doesnt.

It wasnt too difficult once we'd worked out what needed to be undone to get enough movement from the lower control arms. UNTIL one of the nuts on the rear shock tower slipped when my friend was doing it up and ended up in the little gap in the corner and we couldnt get it out



However, we also decided to change the pads at the same time. Fronts were fine, rears........ main problem was getting the pistons back in... My Haynes manual says to turn the manual adjustment screw anticlockwise, which I did, but it didnt really do anything. Got them back enoiugh to fit the pads evetually but now my handbrake doesnt work.... Not sure what i stuffed up there.

[sabretooth]

Did you back off (I think it's) 1/3 or 1/2 of a turn after turning the manual adjustment screw? to wind the piston back in?

[Matty]

If you didn't reset the adjustment screw, the handbrake should come right after a few uses - it's self adjusting...

[Babalouie]

However, we also decided to change the pads at the same time. Fronts were fine, rears........ main problem was getting the pistons back in... My Haynes manual says to turn the manual adjustment screw anticlockwise, which I did, but it didnt really do anything. Got them back enoiugh to fit the pads evetually but now my handbrake doesnt work.... Not sure what i stuffed up there.

Could be that some previous person compressed the piston in the normal way, and in doing so buggered the threaded adjustment mechanism?

[clubman1]

A similar thing happen to me when I was putting on new pads on my sons 1990 NA a couple of weeks back. Turned the adjustor anti-clockwise for about two turns then it went all free. Put the pads in. No handbrake adjustment. So I pulled the caliper off and took it all apart ...blew out the piston. The circlip that holds the threaded adjuster into the caliper for the handbrake mechanism had popped ...where it goes through the to rear chamber. Cleaned the caliper ...put the circlip back in its groove ...no easy feat either ...and it was as good as new.

Hope this solves your problem.

[Adam_NAclubman]

I went back to my cousins after work today and pulled them off again, got the handbrake adjusted nicely now.

Just needs a mega wheel alignment tomorrow after taking the lower control arms off on the front yesterday, it goes straight if i take my hands off the wheel but the wheel has turned about an eighth of a turn to the left, so when I am going straight the steering wheel looks like its turned to the left, I forgot to mark where the off-centre bolts were sitting before I took them out

[sabretooth]

After doing my subframe drop (which meant undoing the steering rack universal) - my steering wheel is also offcentre. Pain in the bum.

[Adam_NAclubman]

Doest really bother me, I was planning on getting an alignment anyway, my friend works at a reputable tyre/alignment place doing the alignments so I always get him to do a nice agressive alignment that gives the best performance possible from the equipment I've got, albeit at the expense of tyre wear. Plus I work nights so getting time to have it done is no problem for me