Tegger changes his shocks

Now that was an experience. I re-used the old springs and top caps.

I had to fabricate my own spring compressor, as I couldn't find anything on
the market for those skinny Honda springs. I did have a bit of help from a
supplier of ours that does laser cutting. They cut the top plate from my
CAD file and their 3/16" steel. See the photos below.

Had over 300K on the original dampers. The rears were a bit soft compared
to the new ones, but still functional. The fronts were absolutely nuked.
The old "bounce test" does not tell you anything, I've found. Both fronts
were sticky and the left one had barfed out all its fluid.

The car's behavior with the new shocks (OEM Showa, over $800!) has to be
felt to be believed. You have NO idea how bad your old shocks are until you
replace them.

Pics here. I'm too lazy to turn this into a Web page just now.
http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/misc/damper_replace/

 

First you get a new cat named "Walker" to replace Rusty, and now you're
finally changing your socks.

What's next?? New belt and suspenders?

;-)

 

indeed. japanese oem last a long time though.

lovely job on the spring compressor!

 

I've found that the more Honda parts cost, the longer they're meant to
last.

Thanks. It worked really, really well.

The Honda shop manual showed a line-drawing diagram (you know the kind)
of the compressor in action, which is where I got the basic design.
Images in the Honda manual that show tools typically call out a part
number for the tool, but this one simply said "commercially available".
Well, I couldn't find one commercially /anywhere/, not even at Snap-On,
so I made up my own.

The top plate was laser-cut from 3/16" steel supplied by our die-maker.
I provided the CAD file based on micrometer measurements taken from my
car, plus my own guesses as to how the thing should look and be sized.
The rest of the material was off-the-shelf stuff at Home Depot (bolts,
nuts, threaded rod, flat stock, etc...)

I did also use our supplier's bending equipment to put the bends in the
flat stock that makes up the clamp at the bottom of the tool. This
bending equipment is very similar to a manual sheet metal brake, but is
meant for thick flat stock less than 2.5" in width. Doing it this way,
holding the part against a paper CAD printout after each bend, enabled
me to quickly achieve an accuracy I would have had difficulty holding
using heat, which was my original idea. The bolt holes were hand-drilled
without the aid of a drill-press. This was time-consuming.

Some random observations...
- Laser-cutting is a narrowly-focused (ha ha) business. When you change
materials, you need to change gases and piece support structures. Wood
and steel, for example, require totally different setups.
- My annual rust-proofing treatment makes a hell of a mess everywhere,
but it certainly does retard rust. The springs cleaned up to like-new,
with the odd rust patch here and there. You can still clearly see the
factory's calibration markings (the paint dabs). Deposits on the rear
springs were harder to remove, so I gave up before they were completely
clean.
- The shocks all have HONDA/SHOWA lightly stamped into them; hard to
see. The originals had their part numbers printed on. The replacements
have paper stickers with the part numbers.
- You REALLY need to get the top caps lined up properly, otherwise
you'll never get the lower suspension bolt to engage.
- Cleanliness is essential, believe it or not. Dirt trapped between
mating surfaces will cause major problems.
- More than ever, I regard my $200 purchase of my DeWalt DW-293 electric
impact gun as one of the best tool purchases I've ever made. This thing
is awesomely effective in making light work of ANY bolt I've EVER tried
it on. It has never failed to undo any bolt I've been able to attack
directly, without use of extensions. I HIGHLY recommend one for anybody
doing his own work.

 

I guess you could say the car /does/ have new suspenders... Plus I put in a
new timing belt this spring, so...

I'm really concerned that Walker may cough up a hairball at smog check
time. Might spend $40 to check her out before I need to...

 

If you agree that the bounce test does not tell you anything you might
wonder how long are you have been driving on dead shocks... Maybe they were
good for 100k only and the rest 200k was just bad shocks

$800 - ouch!

Most of people replace dead shocks with a new ones... The difference is hard
to be believed, of course. I always wondered how much difference is there
between *new* shocks of different brands. Never had enough determinance and
money on hand to do a test. I wonder if the difference between shocks made
by A and similar made by B are even noticable when shocks are put on a
car...

http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/misc/damper_replace/8-rt-frt-top-compressor1.jpg

I can tell it was major pain to move this plate down by hand with so much
thread to work with... Your regular spring compressor available at Autozone
has much, much coarser thread and even with this one I used air wrench to
speed up cranking down and up the threads when I worked on my toyota
camry... I guess I am very impatient ;-)

What are these two pointy bolts on both sides of the center hole? Are these
the studs connecting to the chassis? I had 3 of them in my toyota.

 

er, so why exactly are you bothering to post? what are you bringing to
the conversation???

sure you wonder. you wonder so much you don't try anything for
yourself, and you don't even bother to look anything up on the web, even
though you have internet and apparently endless time on your hands to
post inane drivel.

er, if you'd bothered to read tegger's original post, he told you
/exactly/ why he made this spring compressor and /didn't/ bother with a
generic...

jeepers - your apparent difficulty in under-hood component recognition
is not a function of dirt accumulation.

 

Bugger off, jimmy!

What are YOU bringing to the conversation with your comments
like this one:

" indeed. japanese oem last a long time though. "

or this one:

"lovely job on the spring compressor" ? Get off my back!


My main point in the post to Tegger was the question about
how does he know the original shocks lasted 300k if he himself
admits that the results of the bounce test (that he obviously
used to evaluate his shocks) cannot be trusted? How can he
know that his shocks did not give up 100k or 200k miles ago?
I certainly did not know if mine lasted 240k on my camry...

But you, blinded with some obsesion to jump on my back
every time I write something here, you haven't notice this...
That's ok - I am not going to cry because some Jimmy
does not understand every sentence from text he reads.

 

Yes, I did (and still do) wonder exactly that.

However, the left front had gotten suddenly really rubbery over about a
month, which suggests that it was still somewhat operational up to that
point.

It's a LOT harder to bounce the corners of the car now, especially the
fronts. I only weigh 180 lbs though, so it might be easier to bounce
them if I was heavier. The dead shock on the left front was very easy to
bounce.

Don't know and don't care. I hate aftermarket and will not install such
on my car.

There's so much thread because I never bothered shortening the threaded
rod I bought from Home Depot (36" long). I could have taken a /lot/ off
them if I could have been bothered to.

The plate only needed to move up or down a couple of inches or so each
time, which was easily accomplished with the wrench I used. That wrench
had a ratchet in its closed end, so it as just a matter of waggling my
hand back and forth rapidly, wrench between my fingers.

Those generic MacPherson-strut compressors do not work on the springs on
non-MacPherson-strut dampers. Honda non-strut dampers have springs that
are way too tight and closely wound to get the claws of standard
compressors between the coils.

That's what they are. Since my suspension does not use the damper
mountings as locating members, they basically just have to keep the
damper top from bouncing around, which doesn't take much.

What you see in the photos is the first damper I did. I discovered then
that I didn't need to put the nuts back when I installed the assembly in
the compressor, so they were left off for the other three assemblies.

 

there's another benefit also: by grabbing the coils directly, the
surface of the springs can be damaged. these can be fatigue initiation
points. designs such as yours that only compress on the designed load
points completely eliminate this possibility.

 

I see, so at least you have an idea when it happened.
I was not able to feel the difference...

That sounded very radically ;-)
But I agree that every time I replace a factory part on my 13-years old
toyota that part breaks after a year or two... while the original was
working fine 10-11 years. Exhaust pieces are perfect example...
But with struts or shocks - is honda or toyota manufacturing them any
different than - let's say - Gabriel does?

Yes, I saw the picture and I can imagine this... You are very patient man.

How do they do it in honda dealerships?
What spring compressor do they use there?
Do you know how does it look like?

 

It was supposed to. As a general rule, aftermarket is a pale shadow of
OEM. There are exceptions of course, but they are few and far between.
Radiators and windshields are two of them. Brake, ignition and pretty
much anything else, are not.

Honda buys their damper assemblies for my car from Showa. Showa does not
do aftermarket, only OEM.

I'm sure there are aftermarket units that are just as good as OEM,
but... do /you/ know which the good ones are and which are crap? Me
neither.

The total time waggling up and down was probably less than 15 minutes
for the whole job.

I spent FAR more time
1) feeling my way around with the first damper assembly (right front),
and
2) cleaning off all the accumulated crud, which consisted mostly of old
rustproofing amalgamated with dirt.

All in, I spent four hours doing all four corners of the car. If I were
to do it again, and didn't have to clean anything off, I'm certain I
could get the same job done in two hours or less. By the last corner, I
was a LOT faster than I was at the first.

I've never actually seen our local Acura dealership's spring compressor,
but its design and operation have been described to me:
The unit is mounted to the shop wall. It does not have any threaded
rods. You clamp the bottom of the damper assembly in the fixture, then
lower a lever which bears upon the top mount (similar to my compressor),
compressing the spring. The lever locks in its downward position,
allowing you to buzz the top nut off the damper's rod. You then unlock
and raise the lever, unloading the spring and releasing the top mount so
it and the spring may be removed. Installation is the reverse of
removal. It's apparently very easy and fast.

 

Why are you selecting radiators and whindshields out?
Is this for some specific reason I do not know?

My aftermarket toyota radiator is seeping at the seams between
plastic top tank and the metal fins... Original OEM was whole brass
with no plastic parts. I have to check if I kept the receipt for that
radiator - if I remember correctly it had a life time warranty...

This might be good or bad thing, depending how you look at it...
On one side they have contracts with the big boys, so they must
be at least as good as the warranty on the car... On the other side
Showa is not "exposed" to the open competition with other
manufacturers of shocks and lack of competition can spoil you ;-)

I did not but people do not complain at Gabriel shocks/struts.

I fully understand the effort! Not being a mechanic myself I have done my
toyota struts with much more time spent. It took 1 + 1/2 day. Saturday
morning visit to a local recycler to get good front springs, Saturday
afternoon front struts, cleaning and repainting coils, etc. Replace
passenger side half driveshaft in the meantime. Sunday morning
cleaning/repainting rear springs + replace rear struts. Since this was the
first time I have done the job on toyota dicking with the compressor was
time consuming... Especially on rear springs which similarly like on your
honda have smaller diameter and more turns, so the generic compressor was
locking up frequently on me.
Likely I was at my friends home and he has nice air tools to after several
spring compressions I switched to the air socket wrench and compressing was
much easier and faster with that.

But after this job I fully understand the reason for companies putting whole
strut+coil+seats assemblies for sale. With that thing, instead of almost
whole weekend I would be done within 2 hours or less.

That sounds like a dream ;-)

 

I'm not sure what the forces involved in compressing that spring are,
but I do know from experience with a home made spring compressor for an
old Jaguar that standard all-thread rod like it looks like you may have
used is not terribly strong stuff. You can source grade 5 all thread
from specialist suppliers which is much better than the typical hardware
store stuff. Commercial spring compressors use a much higher grade of
steel, and typically stronger acme cut threads for the rods.

Something to think about.

 

very valid points - with you on all that. but for something quick and
dirty that gets used maybe a dozen times its whole life, it'll do the
job. if i could have found a commercial grade compressor of this
design, i would have bought one by now though.

 

Better quality there than anywhere else.

Then you got a poor quality rad. Duds are common in the aftermarket, but
are essentially non-existent with OEM.

I doubt that, unless your car dates from the '80s. OEM rad tanks have
been plastic since about 1990 for certain, and maybe even earlier than
that. You could buy aftermarket with metal tanks until about ten years
ago.

I've never had to use a compressor with rear struts unless I didn't have
a helper.

Strut rears sually have sufficiently light compression that you can,
with a helper, just push the top mount down with your hands while the
helper buzzes the top nut off.

 

Considering the stress I saw placed on the threads of my compressor, I
think you're worried about nothing. There's no sign of shearing or any
other sort of unusual effects on the threads of the rod or the nuts.

It's not like you're winding the spring right down until it bottoms; you're
only compressing it just far enough to get the top mount on and off. The
assembly is otherwise in the same orientation as it would be on the car
with the wheels left hanging, so the spring has very little load.

 

Me too.

 

Obviously, he is NOT the boss at home (or work), so this has become his
bullying station.

Typically, this sort is convinced that the world revolves around him.

JT

 

so you think it's ok to bullshit with bad science and/or guesswork? i
just want to be clear on what you think is acceptable behavior here.