Pakolainen

Twas a sad day on Friday last week, after having purchased a set of D2 racing coilovers, getting them installed and taking the good advice of the importer that with the documents provided by him, they would have no problem passing a MOT, failed, (the car just passed it's MOT, but due to changing the suspension it needed retesting) which led to the windy path of :
is it time to get something more economical.

With 5 years behind the wheel of my cherished MY05 WRX, i thought it was time to update the suspension, especially as the back strut was knocking.
homework all done, it seems i would fall at the last hurdle, and so far with no 'friendly' mot inspector to be found in Helsinki, it's time to cut my losses.

i won't lie, a tear was shed in mourning.
on the plus side, i will be looking to buy a new car, it'll probably be diesel (don't know if that's a given +), which in turn will ease the strain on my wallet each week.

on the minus side: i love my car, nothing will compare to it, anything i get won't have the same status as the WRX. and my daughter will be pissed.

the only real benefit, is that the car still holds a price here in finland, so i won't be losing all my cash input.

which leads to the next dilemma of, what to get. i did eye up a Dodge Caliber SRT4, but with 70 more horses a 0.5l bigger engine and 19" rims, it probably is less economical than the WRX. so what to get....
thanks for all the advice i've been given on here, but i'll still be around. Car hasn't gone yet.

dunx

iTrader: (3)

Bolt the tired suspension on, test it, and swap back after....

dunx

Pakolainen

yup, it would seem that's what a fair few do, but i don't have the skills, tools or know how, so it would be 400€ each time, before the MOT and then after.

which would then be easier to save save and save to get a coilover set that is individually TUV certified

B0DSKI

iTrader: (17)

Are MOT tests so strict in Iceland that your not allowed afternarket coilovers?? Even if they are brand new ?

Pakolainen

In Finland, every substantial after Market modification has to come with a model specific TÜV certificate. This applies to all cars after, I think, 1999, but does not apply to jdm.

It's anally retentive.
Same rules in Norway.

B0DSKI

iTrader: (17)

Man that's tough. Good job it's not like that here, i'd forever be at the MOT station. I'd be very tempted to do what Dunx say's, at least that way u get to keep the scooby and not have to drive a Dodge Caliber!!!

stedee

iTrader: (4)

come on mate ,changing suspension is a piece of ****.
3 or 4 nuts on the top and 2 big mothers where they join the hub, seriously 15 min job for each corner if youve got a nice big ratchet bar

Guv

iTrader: (8)

He's right dude, its not rocket science just changed the shocks on my wagon myself was surprised at how easy was, just need to have strong person around to undo the rusted up bolts..

Cexy_ratt

same as above, cant be more than 6 or 7 bolts to undue. I did my bottom ball joints at the weekend, 1 hour tops and that included taking the wheels off, jacking etc

Very easy car to work on, very easy

Pakolainen

really, what about the springs being compressed and locked to be sure they don't fly off? or is that camp fire talk.
i was told an hour for each corner by the grease monkey, and even then it took him 5.

perhaps not confident enough........'cheers for the replies tho.

53

iTrader: (41)

Did it have a key ?

Pakolainen

a key?

Cexy_ratt

the STD one is just a McPherson Strut as usual

Remove the 3 bolts (or whatever) from the top mount ( on top of the strut tower) the whole strut will then fall down, maybe unbolt from the hub first and disconnect the brake line for ease


big bolt in the middle of the top mount holds the spring in place and top mount, undue that and the spring will go skywards. So basically for swapping struts over dont undue the middle bolt


just repeat the process, i bet jacked up and on axle stands wheels off, you could swap all 4 back to STD in 2 hours max, all the bolts will be good and unsized as you just changed to coilovers. Just take your time, decent spanner dont round things etc..

Cexy_ratt

really just have a look at the strut , youll see how it comes away.
From the age of 10 i can remeber rebuilding cosworths, turbo this and that with my dad, i hated it lol, being made to scrape headgaskets off cylinder heads, and stripping down things with him

looking back well worth it lol

Pakolainen

wow, you make it sound easier than taking candy from a baby.
part of it is probably the 'fear factor' of them being a major part of the car, screw them up and the car is out of action.
i'm a chef, so the most i've done for the car, is change the front badge to be pink, stereo and yup. that's it.
could have a look, have had a finnish subaru cub member offer to do it for 250€ including the alignment (which is 100€ here)

cheers.
will have a look, and think about going to buy a proper jack, axle stands and a big spanner :-)

stedee

iTrader: (4)

seriously if your mechanic took 5 hours to do that????
dont let him touch anything else, were you there??? i bet it took him an hour.

do it yourself mate and start learning, we all start somewhere

i think the back ones may take some detective work to find the top mounts( i think you have to take the seat out but the fronts are easy

250 euros plus alignment, if its proper camber ,caster and toe is an ok price

Saint AAI

The initial fitting of the coilovers and setting them up can take some time, but once set it's easy to just swap them. Biggest problem is with seized bottom bolts which can be difficult to remove without decent tools, if yours have been off recently then that shouldn't be a problem. On a classic you need to remove the rear seats to access the strut tops, not sure if it's the same on an '05. Removing the back seats is easy anyway.

2 bottom bolts:



Poor picture showing the holes for the top 3 in the engine bay:



The tops of the rears behind the back seats, you only undo the 3 small nuts on the tops, not the large one in the middle:





Old next to new:





Fitted:






Notice how the brake flexi hose is held in place by a bracket on the suspension, this should be self explanatory when you see it as to how to remove and refit. Although on the standard classic struts the flexi hose passes through a hole in the bracket so you need to either remove the brake hose and then pass it through the hole, which means bleeding the brakes after, or just cut the side of the bracket away so you can just slot the hose in place like on the D2 brackets.

When refitting I bolted the tops in first, but left them loose to allow some movement, then put the bottom bolts in loose. Then I tightened the tops followed by the bottoms. Getting the bottom bolts back in requires some pulling and levering of the hub downwards I think (can't really remember) on the standard shocks as it's fully extended, or you could use spring compressors to shorten it a bit. As the D2's are shorter I needed to jack the hubs up when fitting to align the bottom bolt holes.

Pakolainen

wow, thanks, that is a full on explanation.

sold the car today, or rather part exchanged it. for the MT05 with 76000km on the clock, with the 75k service not yet done, they gave me 18600€

got myself a Mazda 3 1.6TD coming in 2 weeks, with every kind of extra there could be (parking sensor, cruise control, steering wheel audio, steering wheel hands free, 17" rims, automatic air conditioning, electric wing mirrors)

happy with it. MY2010 with 1000km on the clock.

it's not an WRX, but i'll get it back soon.

cheers
Steve