i woke up on to my alarm on saturday morning with the intention of lowering my ST... but i could hear heavy rain on my window so i turned my alarm off and thought stuff it i'll go back to sleep

i was then woken up by my mum at about 9 saying didnt you want to be up sorting your car out today its lovely and sunny outside! i was thinking WTF, but the sun was beaming through my window when i opened my curtains so i got my oldest dirtiest clothes on i could find and made my way out to the car.

by the time i had had a large bowl of crunchy nut and a shower the heavens had decided to open again

but i phoned a family friend who has a garage i could fit in so took it there

Heres a few pics before i started work:





i then had to try and work out what i was doing... before saturday the most i had ever done to a car was change the exhaust

so here goes firstly i put chocks under the front wheel and then jacked the rear of the car up in the middle of the axle and put it on axle stands at the jacking points on each side of the car. then removed the wheels.

next i lifted the axle up using the jack to make sure the springs and shocks where still under a little bit of tension,
the bolt at the bottom of the shock then needed to be undone, the nut on the other side is welded in place to make it easy!



then after both sides have been undone the shock should hang free, next lower the jack holding the axle up and the springs should hang free... or fall onto your foot as one of mine did





after the pain had gone in my foot it was time to take the hubs off to fit the axle spacers.



firstly i undid the ABS sensor in the middle of the 4 bolts and wiggled free and taped it to the brake line to make sure i didnt catch it anywhere and damage it. i then undid 3 of the 4 nuts with a long reach socketas you cant move a spanner in there as there are too many pipes and wires, the 4th nut is fiddly as the frame stops you putting a long reach socket so you have to fiddle about with a normal socket and takes almost as long as the 1st 3 nuts put together to take off!

this will then release the hub to fit the spacers in behind the disk shield, the ABS sensor has to be put through the spacer and then locked in place before putting the hub back on as the spacer gets in the way.

its rather fiddly to get it all back in place and you have to be patient with it it took me ages you need about 6 hands to hold everything!

and this is what it looks like when they are fitted...



they are the 12.5mm spacers so that i don't need and arch work done, if you go wider the wheels can rub.

next it was time to fit the new springs and put it all back together.



the spring wedge up on the original rubber bung and then the axle needs to be lifted up to compress the springs again, they need to be popped into position when there is a tiny little bit of pressure on them, when they are in the shoe at the bottom of the arm the axle needs to to be lifted till the bottom of the shock is inline with the hole to bolt it back together.

next the wheels can be put back on and the car can be lowered back off the axle stands

when i had completed that part of the car my mate had something he had to do so i was kicked out luckily it had stopped raining so i continued work on my drive back at home

i jacked the car up again, the front end this time and put it onto axle stands at the jacking points.
then the wheels had to come off.

there are 2 things that need to be undone to remove the shock, there is a bolt on the bottom of the shock and then there is a beam that holds the shock to the arm, this is a nut that needs an allen key to hold the thread still to undo.



this releases the bottom of the shock and with a little WD40 and a precision tool called a hammer the hub should fall away, next the top of the shock needs to be undone, to do this its 3 nuts under the bonnet round the top of the shock.



the shock should then release and come out.

the next bit i couldn't take any pictures as i was concentrating very hard as to not have a spring fly out of the spring cramps... but it is simple you need to clamp up the springs and then undo the bolt in the middle of the shock, this removes the top cap and allows the spring to come off, then carefully it the clamps need to be loosened.

the new springs are done put on just as you took the old ones off, firstly they need to be clamped up till the cap can be put back on and the nut can be done up again. once the nut is on a few turns your pretty safe from the spring flying off, but the cap is easier to do up if the spring is still clamped, once tightened the spring can be released, making sure it is positioned correctly in the bottom plate, there is a little cut in that the bottom of the spring fits snug into. once the spring is undone from the clamp the shock is ready to go back into the arch.

firstly the shock needs to be done up with the 3 nuts at the top under the bonnet again, then the bottom of the shock needs to be wiggled into back into the foot using more WD40, i used the jack under the bottom of the arm to lift the foot up to put pressure on the shock to go back into the hole, once it is back in position the bolt needs to be put back in the bottom of the shock.

then the suspension needs to be lifted up so the support beam can be done back up again.

now your ready to put the wheels back on and lift the car off the axle stands

i hope you haven't fallen asleep and i hope this will help anyone wanting to do theirs themselves

heres a few pics of the finished item.

the front



the rear



and the rear spacers with a comparison to what it was before




now a few other pics today after a clean





let me know what you guys think im really pleased with them

Looks excellent! Well done on doing it your self aswell, I know they can be tricky.

Excellent write up mate ... well done!

Car looks great too.

Nice job Dan, not something i would have tried myself but fair play to you mate

Nice one mate, and you saved yourself a few quid doing it yourself. Its not to hard to do and a definate improvement.

Top job!! Well done Dan!

great write up

Nice one mate, Deafintly saved yourself a few quid, I asked R Tec to lower mine, they wanted around £80-£90 pound labour costs

But very nice, looks top notch

Nice one Dan! You done a great job! And saved yourself a few $$$$$$$$$

Costa 80-90quid to put 4 springs on is a good price...lowest I found was £100

Looking good wouldn't want to do it myself!

Looking good :thumb

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wouldn't want to do it myself!

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Me neither, would prob muck up the spring clamp things and rupture myself!

Really? I thought that was expensive! Oh well he saved himself at least £100 then, Nice one

nice one mate this really helped me doing it myself on saturday!