Help or ideas needed on how to fix my coilover setup.

[Black Knight]

I have the coilover kit from RPM and have been fighting the shock install on the passanger side, appearently alot of others have also had trouble here. For me though I've ran out of ideas and options.

With the help of Mike and JJorgensen i've tried every idea we could brain storm and nothing works, so I'm looking for ideas that others might have who've done this mod or just an idea from anyone who can think outside the box, because I'm out.

With the spring installed and the suspenion hanging I just bearly have enough room for the front camber/caster bolt.

As soon as you put any weight on the suspenion though the bolt hits the spring.

I've tried mounting the shock upside down to see if any clearance is gained, and still nothing.

As of now I've tried tweaking the shock tower by hitting with a hammer and that doesn't seem to have any effect on where everything is.

I've tried shimming the top of the shock more so the rear, but then it causes the spring to rub on the inside of the shock tower, too much so I can just hit it with a hammer to gain more clearance.

I've ground the camber/caster adjustment bolt head about half way down and still nothing, all those pictures are with the bolt head ground down.

The last thing I'm thinking is to grind the head of the bolt down till there's only about an 1/8" or 1/16" left. The trouble i'll run into is aligning it, but when I go to align it I was thinking maybe I could loosen the outside nut and then double nut it together and that should be enough to spin the cam.

The drivers side clears with room to spare, go figure.

That's all I got so if any ones got anything I'm open to suggestions.

Roy

 

[2kwik4u]

Re: Help or ideas needed on how to fix my coilover setup.

Shim the bottom towards the rear, and mount the shock upside down.

You want the spring towards the bottom of the unit to allow for the maximum clearance inside the shock tower. You also want to shim it as much as possible towards the rear of the truck at both mounts.

You might also want to try loosening the lower control arm bolts, and letting that move around a little in the holes before tightening them down. That also effects that positioning.

In the end it's just a super tight fit, and has to be worked around.

 

[2kwik4u]

Re: Help or ideas needed on how to fix my coilover setup.

In the first picture.....where did that spring cup come from? That thing looks huge. You might be better off leaving that monstrosity at the bottom.

In the 3rd picture it appears you have a washer width or two you can move the shock towards the back. I would do that and see if that helps.

I also can't help but comment on that balljoint angle. no matter how off topic it is. i still find it slightly humorous that RPM engineered a design flaw into thier setup.

 

[Black Knight]

Re: Help or ideas needed on how to fix my coilover setup.

Shim the bottom towards the rear, and mount the shock upside down.

You want the spring towards the bottom of the unit to allow for the maximum clearance inside the shock tower. You also want to shim it as much as possible towards the rear of the truck at both mounts.

You might also want to try loosening the lower control arm bolts, and letting that move around a little in the holes before tightening them down. That also effects that positioning.

In the end it's just a super tight fit, and has to be worked around.

In the first picture.....where did that spring cup come from? That thing looks huge. You might be better off leaving that monstrosity at the bottom.

In the 3rd picture it appears you have a washer width or two you can move the shock towards the back. I would do that and see if that helps.

I'll go out and try to shim it and have it flipped upside down, when I shimmed it initially it was right side up. I also only shimmed the upper mount I'll try both and see where that gets me.

The control arm bolts are loose right now, I can lift and lower the control arms no problem, but I'll give that a shot also.

The spring cup came with the shocks from RPM.

If I adjust that spring lower it might give me even more clearance to shim.

Great ideas Mike I'll go see where it gets me. :tup:

 

[2kwik4u]

Re: Help or ideas needed on how to fix my coilover setup.

Let us knwo if you figure it out, what the solution is.

 

[CKEITH]

Re: Help or ideas needed on how to fix my coilover setup.

would it be possible to grind the head of the bolt down a lil???? or is there just too much interference?

 

[2kwik4u]

Re: Help or ideas needed on how to fix my coilover setup.

would it be possible to grind the head of the bolt down a lil???? or is there just too much interference?

I think he's already ground about 1/2 the thickness away.

 

[dgoodhue]

Re: Help or ideas needed on how to fix my coilover setup.

Shim the bottom towards the rear, and mount the shock upside down.

I agree

In the first picture.....where did that spring cup come from? That thing looks huge. You might be better off leaving that monstrosity at the bottom.

I think that is the spring spacer RPM uses to acheive closer to stock rides heights. RPM has a lower shock mounting point than JS used.

 

[bezerk]

Re: Help or ideas needed on how to fix my coilover setup.

this might be a stupid question, but can it be that you flipped them upside down?

 

[Black Knight]

Re: Help or ideas needed on how to fix my coilover setup.

would it be possible to grind the head of the bolt down a lil???? or is there just too much interference?

I think he's already ground about 1/2 the thickness away.

I've ground atleast that much, I ground it down to the minimum I thought I would need for my wrench to stay on when I align it.



Well I made sure all the control arm bolts were loose. Then I tried to shim it all the way to the rear. It gives me the clearance I need on the bolt, but now the shock body hits the shock tower.

My only conclusion now is that I'm going to have a buddy bring me home a peice of tubing from work and I'll try to guesstimate and make my own shims that better accomidate what my truck is wanting to do.

I don't like having no shims on the rear of the bottom bolt though, because it seems to bring the shock dangerously close to the drive axle and under jounce and rebound it might hit the axle. I'll try putting in a 1/8" shim in the rear and see if I can come to a happy medium.

 

[Black Knight]

Re: Help or ideas needed on how to fix my coilover setup.

this might be a stupid question, but can it be that you flipped them upside down?

I did that on purpose to see if I could get a better fit, it doesn't matter which way they get mounted, the shock doesn't know the difference.

 

[dgoodhue]

Re: Help or ideas needed on how to fix my coilover setup.

You can use washers as shims, its just a pain when you drop them.

 

[2kwik4u]

Re: Help or ideas needed on how to fix my coilover setup.

Yep, washers work as shims. You can find some 1/16" and 1/8" thick if you search through a hardware store (the old kind of hardware store with racks you can look through, these new super-centers blow goats for dollars in that area IMO).

You're on the right track, just needs shims that are a bit different than what was provided with the kit.

During the development of the JS kit, we found that every truck was slightly different. Some would bolt up and have ZERO problems, others we would have to try as many as 5 of 6 different shim setups to get them to fit correctly without rubbing. Like I said above, it's just a VERY tight fit, and takes a little adjusting to get it to work right. Regardless of who's kit you use, you'll find the difference significant, and well worth the cash and time you've got invested so far.

 

[Black Knight]

Re: Help or ideas needed on how to fix my coilover setup.

You can use washers as shims, its just a pain when you drop them.

Yeah they would probably work perfectly, but unfortunately my OCD anal retentive self wont let me bolt my truck back together with washers, pieces of pipe, ect. :roll:

I'll spend 2 hours cutting and test fitting pieces of tubing well before I ever spend 30 seconds and just through some washers in there. Not saying it's a bad idea Dave and Mike, but again I'm wayyyyyyy to picky about the little stupid stuff.

I'll use the washers as a adjuster to tell me how big my pieces of tubing need to be, hopefully that's problem solved

 

[dirtdemon]

Re: Help or ideas needed on how to fix my coilover setup.

black knight, such a nice thread ...
... in the near future i'll also swap the RPM kit in, so very nice reading for me :tup:


please keep this up and let us know how you definitly solve the problems :dew: :dew: :dew:


regards,pat.
btw.: good luck on you - hope you can work it out rapidly :cheers:

 

[Houseofperformance]

Re: Help or ideas needed on how to fix my coilover setup.

have the same kit, and had the same problem. i used both shims on the frontside of the lower mount and fabed my own shims for the top, wich relocate the shock about 1/8" to the back. now i have the same clearence as on the driver´s side. my shocks are not mounted upside-down.
I asume you already ground down the bolthead+shim of the a-arm mount?

 

[jjorgensen52]

Re: Help or ideas needed on how to fix my coilover setup.

I guess each truck is different, mine cleared fine shimmed all the way rearward

Also, I wonder if the springs are different, mine were tightened down this far by hand

 

[HighPerformanceTrucks]

Re: Help or ideas needed on how to fix my coilover setup.

I've been through this a million times before I decided to totally re-engineer the system from the ground up. If you are running 2.5 ID springs, try a 2.25" spring for extra clearance. Otherwise there just isn't a lot of room to play with in there.

 

[dgoodhue]

Re: Help or ideas needed on how to fix my coilover setup.

Yeah they would probably work perfectly, but unfortunately my OCD anal retentive self wont let me bolt my truck back together with washers, pieces of pipe, ect. :roll:

I'll spend 2 hours cutting and test fitting pieces of tubing well before I ever spend 30 seconds and just through some washers in there. Not saying it's a bad idea Dave and Mike, but again I'm wayyyyyyy to picky about the little stupid stuff.

I'll use the washers as a adjuster to tell me how big my pieces of tubing need to be, hopefully that's problem solved

I am the same with with my truck. I mocked it up with washers and then measured them and then had some spacers made up.

 

[hideakimura]

Re: Help or ideas needed on how to fix my coilover setup.

Same setting here RPM.

Shimmed to back at bottom.

Used MB S-class control arm bolts=round head.